


So, what's the wish?

by hazyamethyst



Category: Arctic Monkeys, Indie Music RPF, Last Shadow Puppets, Milex - Fandom
Genre: (apparently i didn't), Domestic Fluff, M/M, Pining, Slow Build, but the smut is all in chap 10 don't expect more bc there isn't/won't be lol, i changed the rating just in case, i might be digging my own grave though who knows, needless to say there are some fantastic elements in this story, there's nothing to be said about this, there's this one STRANGE thing i haven't so far seen anyone in this fandom write about so yeah, you should find out as u read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-29 11:45:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 60,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7683256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazyamethyst/pseuds/hazyamethyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say it's in the details.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note! Hey! This is very likely going to turn into a chaptered story:D (I've got a nice 5 chapters written ahead but still!!! I won't post any more chapters until I really finish the first draft so that it doesn't become iycststm 2 if I get lazy)
> 
> But, anyway, this works perfectly as a one shot!! There's THIS ONE THING I don't feel it's actually a trigger but kind of taboo, or just downright silly. I'm not very sure. Worst-case scenario you'll shake your head in disbelief and laugh at it but nothing serious.
> 
> I don't want to give out any spoilers but let's just say that I follow more or less 0 rules of how biology works in here, that's it! :)

Alex lies crouched up on the blue velvet chesterfield sofa he's insisted on buying. The one that took half of the space the living room had and cramped the snug style their little place had to it, bringing in its shiny and very posh-y petulance. But the long-haired boy fancied it, and as with many other things, he'd not take a no for an answer, let alone allow the matter to be dismissed, or worse, forgotten. So there he is on his precious piece of furniture, drinking a cuppa at two in the morning, opposite to the unlit fireplace. His lucky ratty purplish blanket is wrapped tightly around his body and only a hand is making it out of the makeshift cocoon he's gotten himself into. His hair is a mess of layers that go north and south and, as fluffy as it looks, Miles knows he couldn't just reach out. Alex has been staring into space for a while now, biting his nail, but otherwise staying quiet and focused. Alex doesn't like his daydreaming (two a.m or two p.m) to be interrupted so Miles blows a silent kiss his boyfriend's way before turning around to leave.

"MileS?"

"Yes, love?"

"Where are you going?!"

There's this thing with Alex, he always knows what is going on around him. You could be as silent as a mouse, and hold your breath while tiptoeing your way through the dark. It didn't matter, he'd know. Even if he was ten feet away and with his back turned to you, he'd call you out on it and sometimes question your destination but never the action itself. He knows that already, somehow. Miles chalks it up to exceptionally good hearing.

"Hmmm...to our bedroom, perhaps?" Miles smiles warmly at the unmoving boy, still half-caught in his own parallel universe by the looks of it. Reminding him of the present time just in case he'd lost track of it Miles steps closer to drop a kiss on his crown and pat his shoulder, softly.

"I'm knackered, baby. Join me when you're done, yeah?"

"Wait!" Alex snaps when Miles had a foot out of the living room. The glass of the two portraits on the marble mantelpiece shatter and Alex winces, and hides his head under the blanket, too. Miles is by his side soon enough, reassuring him it's fine, that his voice sounds lovely to him no matter how high it may get, that it has to be shitty glassware because it's always the portraits breaking not his spectacles, or the table glass, or the windows.

Alex head makes an appearance again, eventually, and Miles wills his eyes not to close and his mouth not to yawn. Alex has something to say to him, something he's struggling with himself, if his body language is any indicator. He hadn't seen it from afar but now, upon closer inspection, the wide eyes are obvious, as well as the hard line his mouth is forming and the messy state of his hair which was not so much random as self-inflicted with tugging and ruffling and nervous curling of stray strands.

Miles kisses Alex cheek and waits, close, facing Alex and with his side resting on the comfy cushions. Their knees bump and Alex sighs when noticing, the worry leaving his face a bit and his eyes coming up to meet his boyfriend's. If the fireplace were on, Miles knows he'd be already fast asleep but as it is, he's caught in the deep brown of Alex irises, never wanting to be let go, if he has a say in it.

"I need you," Alex tucks most of his hair behind his ears and extends a hand to Miles' knee, rubbing circles absently and not once breaking eye contact.

Miles frowns and he brings his head back by inches. Was this a talk about sex? An initiation of? When was Alex ever anything less than exuberant when it came to express his many many maaany needs?

"- to listen. I need you to listen, Miles, okay? Can you do that?" Alex continues on, serious but blushing, yanking up the most he could the blanket now pooled around his lap, to cover him all the way up to his neck even though he was wearing a big woolly grey sweater underneath.

"You know I can." Miles extends a hand to comb some of Alex's bouncy curls back behind his ear, where the man had arranged them just seconds ago "Does it need to be now, though? I've been finishing three paintings plus the sketch of you lounging on here, love. I can't resist drawing you! But I've got to work tomorrow and I already feel like passing out, to be honest."

"Here," Alex quickly stretches an arm to the coffee table and brings up what Miles thought to be his forgotten cup of tea "Drink."

It was coffee. Hot, strong and freshly brewed coffee. Just how he liked it. He's not sure why Alex was drinking it, after all the man isn't too keen on strong tastes or aromas and he often complained caffeine made his imagination all the more overactive when drank in excess but, when Alex presses the edge of the porcelain cup against his lower lip, Miles finds himself a little beyond questioning "C'mon, be a good boy, Mi" He half-giggles half-pouts, tilting the cup slowly and gauging miles reactions as he lowers it down and angles it up once, twice and repeats until there is not a drop left and Miles feels his insides quickly warming up as the hot beverage makes its way through his body. It feels like he has drunk a litre, if he's being honest, but it most likely is just the feeling of having Alex so near, watching you closely, breathing on your face while holding the cup up and down for you. It's strangely intimate, and Miles sighs a bit lost in thought until Alex puts down the cup on the matching ceramic plate a little too forcefully.

"So," his boyfriend begins, resuming his position with the blanket wrapped around him. Miles smiles, eyes wandering to Alex's pink lips as he waits eagerly for the adrenaline rush to kick in.

"Mi, I'm afraid I haven't been totally honest with you. There's a bunch of reasons you wouldn't much care for or understand but, please, I need you to believe me when I say it's been a two-way street."

Miles raises an eyebrow, not liking at all the patronising vibe in Alex's tone, particularly when paired with such sensitive a sentence as "I haven't been totally honest with you." He must have drawn the silence for too long, though, because by the time he opens his mouth Alex is already speaking again, even more vehemently.

"There are things, you see, that are vital for you to know as my partner. Like that I'm gay, or that my parents died when I was five in a car crash, or that I love England and I don't think I'll ever want to move elsewhere, yanno..." Alex draws his knees closer to his chest, not feeling that much comfortable with the piercing edge of Miles' gaze as it openly sizes him up.

"Cut to the chase, Alex. What's going on?"

"Remember I asked you to listen? This isn't easy for me, Miles. Please. Just hang on there a bit more, I'm trying. I'll get to the point and then you can make up your mind, alright?"

"What about?"

"Me..." Alex said, simply "If you still want me."

Miles blinks, stupefied, feeling he'd an inkling about where this is going. Zack. There's only so much you can un-see when the lad is posting picture after picture of 'Al' his 'BFF' singing and bending and crawling all over the bloody stage from every existing angle. Each of them captioned with a heart, occasionally accompanied with a 'naughty boy' or a winky face sticking their tongue out.

Alex had sworn on his life Zack was just a flirty social butterfly. He did that to everyone! He wasn't even gay! He got carried away when taking photos!

Alex had laughed heartily at Miles confession of going through the lad's Instagram and feeling nauseous. He once went as far as to promise Miles he'd have a talk with him and invite him over to dinner someday, so that the Scouser could see Zack first-hand and realise just how much he wasn't even his type, gay or not.

It's been six months since then, the tour is over, and that dinner never happened. Swallowing the bitter in his mouth Miles offered a weak, curt, "Fine."

"Thank you," Alex draws closer and slowly winds his left arm around Miles' shoulders, gently rotating him so that they were properly sitting next to each other. The blanket still hangs around his arm and so Miles feels halfway into the safeness of Alex's fluffy fort. Maybe, just maybe, he hadn't wanted to. Or he regretted it. Maybe it was just a slip-up, maybe Zack caught Alex unawares while he was in one of his intense flirtatious moods.

"There's other things, though, I couldn't have told you before. Now, I have to because I made a mistake and I'm willing to pay for the consequences. It's not hard to put it in words, you'll agree I'm sure, but...it's easier to just see, you know. Look at the fireplace. What do you see, Mi?"

Miles rests his head on Alex's shoulder, expecting another wonderfully intricate metaphor to explain, this time, something as simple and banal as cheating. "Nothing much as it is. Logs, ashes, maybe some inse-"

Fire.

Little flames, they were. Shyly taking over the twigs and smaller logs. Out of nowhere, fire.

Miles doesn't startle, though Alex's hold on him has loosened quite considerably, he notices. As if expecting him to jump or push the man away. On looking up Miles finds a weak smile and glimmering eyes, which he decides look more scared than sad.

"I... I did that." Alex says, his head bobbing to where the fire is.

"Oh?"

"And I broke the glasses, too." Alex rushes on, closing his eyes and swallowing sobs "I didn't mean to, of course. I never do. It's just sometimes it gets hard to control your feelings and think of nothing." Blink, blink, blink. Back to veiny eyelids and wild hand gestures. "When I feel I'm losing my grip on my emotions I just picture that, glass breaking. Little, safe. It's a bit of a release, and very unlikely to hurt anyone. I picture things happening near me, anyhow."

Miles sideglances at the clock hanging high on the wall, above the fireplace. Two thirty. He looks back to the bookshelves on his right then back at the clock. Two thirty-one. The numbers aren't moving or deformed, probably the most common tell-tale that let you know were dreaming. Or at least Miles' favourite when lucid dreaming. Yet this time, it seems, his brain isn't trying to fool him. This is real. The fire cracking happily is real, too. Just as real as Alex, who has curled up into his blanket again, crying quietly.

"Help me understand?" Miles pleads as he tries to mentally trace back all those little things he deep inside always felt he couldn't explain all too logically about Alex, like his outstanding reflexes or above-average sense of direction or the occasional very abrupt bouts of recklessness. That's to say he's never seen Alex smash a plate or a glass... if it slipped from his grip, he'd caught it. He wouldn't get lost even in cities he's never been to and he always came back mostly unscratched from bar fights, though he didn't engage in many. All night he could drink margarita after margarita, Miles but a worrying mum trailing behind him and trying to steal his glasses, yet somehow Alex would manage to skip the splitting headaches and all the general morning-after misery. Maybe once he'd thrown up, twice. In ten years of partying and excesses. And there was more, of course. If he put effort on recalling, Miles is sure he could come up with a very long list.

"Never have met one, and I can't remember anything relevant about my parents but... I think I'm a sorcerer, sort of. It's just... more than plain telekinesis or whatever, I...I imagine things and if I insist a bit on it they happen. Like, I can move things, yes, but it's funnier to just make them appear. It hurts when people look though, like, when I'm in the process of making it happen. Especially when it's strangers. I get this flash of pain in my head and my vision goes white for a few seconds. I first noticed in kindergarten, I...I loved to made the alphabet blocks fly." Alex looks up, checking to see if he's frightening Miles, or making him doubt about his sanity.

"And you formed words, I assume," Miles encourages him to go on, trying his best to be open-minded and hear all that Alex has to say. He said he would, after all, and he wasn't someone to break his word or jump to conclusions, either.

"Yes, well, I tried to. I got very frustrated though because I could hardly get them higher up than my head. Someone would look at them then and I had this pain and had to stop for a while. That wouldn't deter me, of course." Alex shoots a devilish grin at Miles and then sighs. "In a couple months, I was hovering blocks over the teacher. That was the very first time I remember getting into real trouble for this. You see, she thought I had thrown it at her. That's what another kid said, anyway. He didn't like me much and the second he looked at it I lost it and it fell right on her forehead. I winced and smashed my fists on the table and he somehow made the connection and called me out on it. My friends swore I was just laughing at it, like everyone at that table, but I have a feeling the teacher didn't like me much either. You know, being the orphan kid and all. It was a kind of posh school."

"How- how old were you?!" Miles winces at how loud he voice came out. It was a stark contrast to Alex's soft, monotonous whispers.

"Four? Maybe three, I'm not sure."

"Gods, Alex!" Again. He sucks at containing his amazement, it seems. "And your friends watching didn't bother you? Did they know?"

"You don't question things that much at five. I'm not sure I myself knew! It was like living in a dream, in a way. I'd some real trouble differentiating reality from my own inner deliriums when I was alone. Things just kept on happening and I couldn't really control it. Even when I got it that it was something I couldn't do freely when there were other people present. Shouldn't." Alex shrugs and zeroes in on the spoon by his cuppa. Softly, it levitates towards Miles and freezes somewhere midway. Vertically, and in his line of vision, Miles could appreciate it perfectly.

Alex breaks into a laugh then and the thing falls to the couch. "See? No, the closer the person is to you, the less effect it has but...it isn't that good, really. I would get caught up doing tricks when playing football with Matt or Jamie and there was no bell going off in my brain telling me to stop. For an embarrassingly long while they thought I was the next hot goal scorer. A very shy one, though. One that couldn't play half as well once there were other people present"

"But is it that easy? You just imagine something and it happens?" Miles snaps his fingers and Alex shies away in turn, as if startled by the sound.

"No, it...it depends. The problem here is that your concept of imagining is actually advanced practical thinking. I do that, too, of course! I wouldn't be able to live if I couldn't. It serves a purpose, yanno, even if you're imagining yourself in Fiji, sunbathing and eating oysters. Call it escapism, motivation, memory recalling. There's a reason behind it, and a purpose. You see the image, but then you don't. It's really a thought you think you see, but there's no actual picture. What I do I guess is more like visualising but with the passive approach of imagining. Does it make sense? If you go ask people who visualise stuff they'll tell you it requires a lot of concentration and deep meditation and even a bit of luck. Sometimes you'll pull it off, not always. That doesn't apply to me. I can visualise stuff for hours on end and never get tired. I can make my thought process abstract at will so that if I want to fly that spoon your way, all I'll be focused on is the metal making it's way through the air particles, nothing, absolutely nothing else."

"Wow."

"But I can't really imagine cool things I'm not watching first-hand. Like, for example, making a waterfall appear here, right by our house." He waves his arms excitedly, giving his cocoon a whole new array of shapes as he gets more absorbed in his descriptions. "Even if I recall it from memory, which I might, like maps, I can't do it if it's something considerably big. I have to see it, or have seen it a few minutes ago, tops. And it takes a hell more mental work to manipulate it, of course."

"But... Alex, jesus, you did go to see the Niagara falls with me when you were on touring America! Did you fucking move them?!"

There's a silence, and some shuffling on Alex's part. Soon, Miles can make out a lopsided little smile behind the thick tresses clouding his vision.

"A bit... to the right. Some five odd centimetres. It looked better in your sketches that way."

"Oh god," Miles' hand flies to his gaping mouth and he moves away on instinct. He isn't actually scared of Alex, but it would take some processing in his brain to connect the 5ft, tiny, hopeless romantic and passionately poetic Alex he knows so well and adores with this seemingly very powerful little man that could set things on fire from afar and move waterfalls on a whim.

"That... that explains a lot, actually..." Miles softens his tone, recognising Alex slightly hurt expression at his first real human display of shock. "Alex, fuck, it really explains so many things! The amps playing notes you weren't, randomly; the music blasting off the speakers even when the stereo wasn't turned on. Your anniversary pancakes that get done without getting any pan dirty. I swear to god I always thought you called some secret shady delivery!" Alex chortles at that, shaking his head in merry.

"I knew you'd never let it go... even when last year you made me cook them in front of you! At four a.m!" Alex rolls his eyes at the tragicomic memory of finding Miles sitting on a stool when he'd woken up to prepare the secret breakfast. 'Cook,' he had told him, pointing at the kitchen, a stern daring look on his face that made Alex want to kiss him very badly. "I did cook them, always. It. I cooked one, then made a pile from it. And pictured the pans clean."

"How do you know where I am, though?" Miles blurts, suddenly remembering that one peculiarity of Alex's he's long been able to spot and test. "You always know even if I'm sneaking on your back. I can never really startle you."

"Think about it? It's not that far-fetched, love." Alex shook the hair off his face and raised an eyebrow at Miles.

"Oh c'mon, how could I know?!"

"Well... to truly manipulate reality it's only logical I have to feel reality to a higher level, right? I can sharpen all my senses a bit at will but my hearing is on a whole new level. It gets a bit maddening if you take it too far but, in short, I can hear your heartbeat. And breathing. And general moving around that you'd probably deem silent."

"You are hearing my heartbeat now?! Kind of private, you know."

"That's what concerns you? Really, Mi?"

"Not if you ask first..." Miles flashes a goofy smile at Alex, wanting to lighten the atmosphere. He's not that sure he could go on taking any more information about Alex, at least seriously, without screaming in confusion or pulling his hair at the million questions that sprang from every new fact the man revealed about himself.

"I'm not, right now. I could, but it'd dub your voice. It's when I'm not watching people that it's useful, when they are moving around me anyway. It's a bit automatic now, anyway, I used to pushed my limits and try to listen to all the things happening a block around me. Went awful, that."

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm...This all was meant to lead to something. The mistake I made that forced me to tell you. I...I...I don't know how it happened. Everything I've told you now remained a mystery to you because I've learnt control myself, mostly. And when I feel I'm bottling up too much and it needs a way out I always have options. One is to sit here and start doing silly things: turning the fireplace on and off, moving the chairs up and down. I tone it down if you're watching like today and just humidify the windows or move the furniture by inches. I let myself too carried away last month, apparently. You see, Miles, I...today I...God, you're going't' hate meh." Alex sighs and takes a deep breath, which came out in little puffs of air.

"Don't be silly," Miles waits, more on edge than he'd care to admit. "What is it, baby? You know you can tell me everything, especially now. Hey!"

Miles reaches out to shake the little warm cotton ball, carefully. Alex blooms at his touch, though, trapping the hand on his shoulder with his head, which he rubs up against it in a very puppy-like way. He did that sometimes in his sleep, so Miles let him be. After some moments, Alex bestows a brief kiss the centre of his palm and looked up to resume his explaining with a calmer composure.

"Today, I started hearing something else, like... inside me..."

"What?!"

"I can hear a little thumping thing inside my belly. I think I'm pregnant, Mi." Alex looks away his face scarlet red, as he rushes his drawling " And... I remember imagining getting pregnant as I, you know, rode you. Like... how nice it would feel, having a big belly and all- I...I never thought...I was so horny like, I'm...kinky! I wouldn't mind having a kid with you but... I'm not sure how this works? I'd have to hide for months?" Miles nods in spite of himself "I'm sure I can terminate it, though. I just thought I should tell you first and...make a decision together?"

Miles peeks at the purple cocoon with wary eyes now. Either Alex was right and there's a baby trapped somewhere in him or he's completely and officially lost it.

Miles feels like pulling his hair at both possibilities.

"Yes...no. How?! It can't be! A real baby... in you? There has to be some mistake you... you know that's not how it works. Even if you're this special thing you're still a man, Al, you-"

Alex shoulders his way out of the blanket and gingerly pulls up his chunky sweater. Miles follows Alex's head as he looked down and, sure enough, there's a little bump in his otherwise perfectly flat lower abdomen. It isn't big enough to show in his clothing, yet. Watching his naked skin, though, there's hardly any way to deny something is going in there, just above the strap of his cotton black boxers.

"Can I?" Miles hand shoots up of his own accord, dying to feel it for himself. See if he could make out something with his less than ideal senses.

"You don't have to ask. It's not like I'm going to burn you up in flames or anything. I'm not stupid, I wouldn't ever hurt you. Or the baby. Unless you want me to. Not hurt just...well, vanish."

Miles rubs his palm around the bump gently, stopping a few times here and there when he thinks he's felt something. He sticks his ear once too, at Alex insistence, but he couldn't hear or feel anything other than the man's stomach growling. He may have stayed laying there a mite too long, perhaps, because he starts to feel comfortable and sleepy. Not wanting to get up or away from a very much warm and soft Alex.

"Mi?" Alex calls, amused at Miles' sudden low energy and cuddly nature. He's encircled Alex's waist with the same ease a koala climbs a tree and the older man could feel himself already sliding down the couch to give Miles a more comfortable position.

"We can resume the talk in the morning. Unless something goes wrong or it starts hurting you, I'd say keep it. Supposing you want to, I mean. It's a little miracle, Al. Even for you," And so he kisses the pale skin before him, as Alex weaves his fingers through the boy's short hair and watches him slip into unconsciousness.

"I love you," Alex whispers, watching Miles and his belly. Miles, sleeping on him, even after hearing a good account of what he's capable of doing. Watching it. And he isn't afraid or freaked out. He'd been curious, maybe, but never once called Alex a liar or crazy. "I love you more today that you know everything. I love you so much, Mi, I..."

" Not as much as I do!" Miles sits up suddenly, his hands shooting up in an attempt to scare Alex, who was already shaking his head and smiling like a fool.

"That was close, yeah? I almost got you." Miles pecks at Alex's lips, a handful of times, feeling a wave of flirtiness wash down on him as his hands came up to caress Alex's neck.

"Kinda" Alex reciprocates, accommodating Miles on his lap and kissing him back with fervour. He blanks his mind as best as he could and in half a minute his lucky blanket was wrapping itself lazily around them. Miles pushes himself against Alex when feeling something tickling his back and then giggles into the kiss when realising what his boyfriend is doing. Of course.

"So, I've been having this fantasy..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I'M TURNING THIS INTO A CHAPTERED STORY! ! ! (I can't believe it either but I've got ten chaps already written so...:D ) 
> 
> Here’s an as-quick-as-possible list of things to take into account:
> 
> >>Important:
> 
> 1\. The fact of having written so much already helped me realise this story works best in present simple...so I've gone and edited the first chapter all over. The story it's the same, and only some minor changes have been made, mistakes corrected, etc. I know this is a bit of a bold decision, especially seeing as many dislike this choice of tense but, hopefully, if you bear with me you'll see the appeal to it? (I'm really trying, I promise!)
> 
> 2.^^ On that note, there's one major thing I did change and that's Alex having his parents die in a car crash when he was five, not three. 
> 
> 3\. As I said in the comments I’m aware it’s a stretch to call Alex a “sorcerer” as it may have some negative connotations and he’s an actual cinnamon roll so far in this story but I really couldn’t bring myself to call him a wizard, sorry (hp / wooz…yeah). 
> 
> >> Not so important:
> 
> 3\. This one below is a long chapter, even by my ever-changing standards: 6600 words (yup). The average looks to be 5000 from what I've written but the next one may be shorter to compensate. I thought I'd give you the chance to take a nice plunge into this AU first :)
> 
> 4.^^From that you can deduce...this story is a slow-building one, which for a drama hoe like me it's proving to be quite a challenge to write, and it's very domestic, too. 
> 
> 5\. This took a lot of time to edit !! I’m starting to really see the beauty in the process of honing through rewrites entire pages and bits that never sound quite right. It does take t i m e though, time I don’t often have as a uni student that works, or maybe if I do I’m in tired moods that do not help my writing be any interesting, so yeah. I’d love to update weekly but it’s far more likely this will fall into a bi-weekly schedule.
> 
> 6.Comments and kudos!! Thank you!! They really mean so much!! It still blows my mind that someone out there in this big vast world takes the time to read what I (a nobody!!) write and then even drop some comments, I'm so :''''''') (every time)
> 
> Anyway, I'm excited for this! Hopefully I haven't bored you too much, already.  
> Enjoy!
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~~~  
> ~~~~~  
> ~~~~  
> ~~~  
> ~~

_August 9th._

Alex wakes up the next morning to find Miles isn't by his side in bed, neither cuddling him nor being cuddled. He isn't in the bathroom either, or the kitchen, or anywhere on the first floor for that matter. The basement? Didn't feel like it. He sits up in bed slowly, still incredibly sleepy, and checks the time on the digital alarm clock that's on his bedside table. Not too early, not too late: ten-oh-seven. The colon twinkles and he watches, he yawns, he screws his eyes shut and in the darkness it is that it dawns on him, at last, that Miles had to deliver some canvases and give an art lecture at some college around Soho as a special guest. He tries to remember whether the man woke him, and said some farewell words, maybe gave him a kiss? Or two? It was weird for him not to, to just leave. They usually had breakfast together, even if then Alex would crawl back to sleep again but he's sure that isn't the case today, his stomach is growling loud and clear in protest for his stalling.

So Alex stands up, groggy, and makes a beeline for the fridge. He takes out the milk, puts it on the counter, then goes on his tiptoes to reach for a bowl and his cereal box. He pours the oatmeal squares and watches them pile up until he the milk flows down and they are floating happily around. He sits at the breakfast bar and turns on the tv, trying to catch up what's going on with the outside world, trying to numb his own worries.

He realises a bit too late, when he's washing up the bowl and the spoon, that he actually hadn't reached out for the latter and it gives him a flash of anger because he didn't mean to do that, he'd made breakfast with his own two hands and he could as well have grabbed the silvery thing with his very own fingers, just like he had countless times before, when people were around. It still puzzles him, how hard it becomes not to use his mind to alter reality when he's alone.

Maybe that's why he doesn't like to be alone much. He's not a people person, never truly has been, but the lack of company and interaction all too often reminded him of the orphanage and days on end locked away in his room, skipping meals in favour of creating miniature replicas of levitating tornadoes and spheres of fire and he'd crash together and watch get bigger and bigger until it was almost his height and he had to picture a typhoon encircling it all to make it vanish. The fire alarm went off so usually in his bedroom he was certain if he'd started a real fire someday nobody would have even bothered to come and check up on him.

Yet it was fun to watch, if a tad dangerous, though it hardly topped the awe or smiles he could bring out on other kids when popping up eggs randomly on Easter egg hunts, or making the candles on a birthday cake fire up again, or prompting gifts and letters to arrive on sad dull Christmas for those kids whose far relatives never really actually wrote or cared to buy.

Nobody knew it was him, though, and he'd continue to be picked on and called names even after the nicest of celebrations. Still, young Alex liked to think he'd been able to make those kids' lives marginally better at least, gave them some good memories to recall later on in life and feel better about their impefect childhood. He'd felt that if there was some actual purpose to having his particular abilities, it'd certainly had to be along those lines.

And it is, surely.

How could the calm that comes over him when hearing other people's heartbeat near him be otherwise explained?

It so happened that he'd sometimes get attached to those beats faster than to the person itself. He remembers following Jamie down the halls in middle school once just to keep hearing the soft sound, and then strike up a random conversation with the blond just to indulge in the feeling a bit more. He didn't even know the boy back then and Jamie still recalls how he thought young Alex had a crush on him by the dreamy look on his face.

Typical 8th grader, thinking everyone one or two years younger was in love with you. Alex chuckles and then stops, a not so familiar sound bringing back to the present and he almost bangs his head against the wall cabinets for forgetting he's not really alone.

Speaking of getting attached to heartbeats, he feels like writing a song.

 

X

Miles startles awake from a bad dream which details start to fade quickly the more he tries to recall it. Something about sharks, he thinks, and it kind of makes sense if you consider he's been watching a lot of discovery channel lately, to try and spark his inspiration, make his painting of the sea life seem more authentic. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths realising, with a bit of a scorn, that he's broken into a sweat and it's not entirely his nightmare's fault. His temper somewhat cools down on looking down and seeing what an adorable image Alex actually makes sleeping on his chest, all wrapped around him like a vice. Miles gives it to him that it's very cold outside, he can feel his nose turning to ice the more deep-breaths he takes while watching the serene-looking man snore lightly. He runs his fingers through those dense matted caramel locks, ruffles it lovingly, the smooth hairs slipping off his fingers like wet soap. He drops a kiss on his crown when a snore comes out like a hiccup and gets up.

It's when he's in the shower that the haze in his mind starts to clear and he remembers a lot more soberly the events of last night. He stills, shampoo bottle clutched on his hand as he squints his eyes at the glass door in front of him, his brain running a hundred miles per hour trying to decipher if Alex being not quite who he thought to be was part of his wild dreams or not.

By the end of the shower he's certain that yes, that Alex confession was real, that they had a talk but the rational side of his brain is still battling him and he finds himself wanting to believe it as he quickly slips into his burgundy suit, throwing a few glances back at his boyfriend to check he's still quiet and sleeping and a few feet away because that's how he prefers him for now. He's fast and succeeds to sneak out the room unnoticed, more than ready for a speedy breakfast but five steps down the stairs he stops, his mind wagering the tension he'll be feeling all day as it always does when he's in doubt about something so, before he can stop himself, he's hurrying back in as silently as possible until he's standing by Alex's side on their bed, frozen. He bends in slow-motion, reaches for the flowered cover, and counts to ten. To fifteen. He does it, at last, on twenty. He pulls down the covers and opens his eyes, next thing he knows he's darting back down, grabbing his suitcase, the canvases, his coat, all while telling himself he's heading for breakfast in London because he's starving and can't be bothered to cook a proper one. Yes, he's got other things in mind to fret over, doesn't he?

Driving away into the city landscape kind of helps, though.

 

X

Two hours fly by strumming and Alex starts getting hungry again. He's quite happy with the melodies he's penned down, he really is, but he'd be lying if he said he weren't eyeing the smartphone he's been balancing on his mid thighs every five minutes or so. He wants to hear from Miles, and it really doesn't help that he's in one of his many flirty-affectionate moods or that every brush of the soft velvet on his thighs reminds him of last night, of Miles humping his leg and growing restless on his lap and how he had pushed the man down into the couch, kissing away his doubts as he melted and begged and there was not a hint of fear or doubt when Alex pushed into him and proceeded to fuck him senseless into the firm cushions, just cries of 'more' and 'want you, Al' and 'loveyouIloveyou please let me come, baby.'.

Alex isn't sure he can recall a time he's felt as free and weightless and accepted as when he finally came and Miles wondered incredulously if Alex could teleport them back to their bed.

He ended up carrying the man, he didn't really mind, he was so happy and high on endorphins he just wanted to sleep and wake up to fuck him again, maybe switch, and then fuck him again, but harder. It takes some time for Miles to really wake up, he usually hangs around in a cloud of sweetness and general forgetfulness about his responsibilities. He's playful, but very receptive, so the least you can do was reciprocate and be delicate. They could have resumed their conversation at breakfast, or wait if Miles wasn't ready. Alex didn't see the need to hurry as he drifted off to sleep last night, peaceful, knowing he'd been completely honest now and Miles hadn't freaked out or rejected him. Isn't it all that really matters? That they're happy and in love and that they could figure things out together. Just like any other couple. Life doesn't come with an instruction book for anyone. Right?

Alex buffs, frustrated, and puts the guitar away. He wills his smartphone to follow him around as he washes his face and shaves and then pulls on a fresh ironed shirt and some jeans because it was too cold to be hopping around in brief boxers alone and he couldn't be bothered to take the cold shower he definitely needs. He sprays some deodorant to make ends meet and opens a drawer to pick a belt. He's threading the shiny black thing through the loops and checking himself in the mirror when he feels a flare of pride run through him, though he was needy as fuck, and he decides to give up checking his notifications every two minutes and call Matt instead.

He picks up on the third ring.

"Oi, mate! I were just going to call ya!" Matt shouts into the line, making Alex glad he's put the call on loudspeaker as he scours the messy bedroom for his wallet, keys, sunglasses, comb, and cig...cigarettes, to toss them away somewhere. Miles hates Pall Malls.

"'ello, Matthew" He closes the little drawer on his bedside table and turns off the lamp, walking over to his left to fling the opaque grey curtains apart. He opens the windows to let some light in and fresh air too.

"What you up to, Al? Always disappearing like squirrels, you and that Scouser, huh? Been missing ya here, I'm with the boys. Say hi to Alex. Are you daft, Nick? A-leeeeeex"

"Aly, Aly, Al, eh?"

"Hi, Jameh"

"Oh, Al! Hi! It's Nick!" Glasses click and there are burps and sounds of general banter in the background.

"Not much really. Missed your stupid faces a bit, 'owever. Ye somewhere near London? " Alex winces, seeing his open pack of Pall Malls there on the windowsill, the idea of blowing smoke out into the cold, pine-fresh country wind so tempting. He grabs it and leans on his elbows, looking out.

"Sure you did, wanker. We are in London, aye! That's why I was gonna call you. Nick has some pretty big fucking news to share and the gang isn't really complete without our handsome little man."

"Does he now? The zoo project took off?" Alex fires back, a little smile playing on his lips at the image of Nick finally at home with his own.

"Don't be an ass, he..."

"You won't get in Al, I'll ban you first thing when I open it." Nick singsongs in the back, cocky.

"If," Alex chucks the box he'd squeezed into a spiky cardboard ball of sorts and watches it hit ground a few steps away from their fenceless porch. He wills it back up to his hand and repeats the throw. It lands two feet away from the first, and he repeats the process, playing alone, or well, with the wind.

Beats throwing pebbles in a pond with Miles?

At night?

With candles all around?

No. But it takes his mind off the urge to actually light a cigarette and smoke.

Nick burps, " _When_ "

"We'll, eh,"

"IF" Alex raises an eyebrow, a good shot to a log getting fucked over by the wind.

"Shut it you two," Matt deadpans, knowing they could go at it for hours if left alone. "We're at Hakkasan. Alex?"

"Mayfair?"

"Aye, that. The others won't open before night, remember?"

"Fine, be there in forteh." Alex says, a little less enthusiastically than he should have. It was a kind of a small posh place, usually packed with people, and he was starting to feel self-conscious about his belly. "And, Matt? Order that beef with white asparagus and lotus thing dish for me, yeah? I'm starving."

"Will do, Al." The words came out in sharp coughs, wrapped up with a trace of ongoing snickering. "James, no... stop. _Stop._ " Matt sounded serious for a moment and there was a brief silence "Hafta save some for Al, hey. BUY YOUR OWN CHIPS MATE OI GIVE IT HERE!"

And the drunken banter broke out again, Matt whispering a hurried _'see ya, lil diamond'_ to Alex then promptly hanging up.

 

X

Alex sometimes forgets why he had started a band in the first place. It's moments like this, however, that reminds him it may not all just be about the music. Matt is balancing chips on his face when he arrives, with Nick in front of him keeping track of the stopwatch on his phone and sneaking glances at the blonde on his side. Jamie is, by contrast, glum, sitting back in the velvet chair, scowling and with his arms crossed, a gesture that makes Alex think he'd probably just lost a bet.

The silly scene alone is enough to put Alex at ease, along with the fact that the place isn't that crowded, and he welcomes the details about what's been going on in his friends' life with genuine interest. Then come the jokes, imitations and general fucking around, which he's used to, naturally, yet it seems today he can't have two bites of his steak without breaking into a fit of laughter. Clearly, Matt is on a roll, his irony sharp as a butcher's knife, but it's Jamie –always perceptive Jamie- who waits for Alex to finish eating and then points out the brunet was laughing like he hadn't done so in a while, the simple, breezy comment being enough to get thrust into the limelight as the others weigh on the all too visible fact.

"Not drinking alcohol either, Al?" Matt snatches Alex's glass and brings it up to his nose, smelling the contents. "Nowt," He takes a sip then turns to face Alex, who's sitting in the booth with him. Matt squints at his eyes, the low light the dichroic lamps gave out rendering any appraisal of Alex's typical murky eyes impossible. He nudges the smaller man, and smiles warmly anyway "Hangover, huh? Lil diamond here's been partying and not inviting us, it seems. Enjoy your water, Al." He winks at an equally pissed Jamie and near-passing out Nick and puts down the glass in front of his friend, carefully.

Alex feels the sudden urge to make it shatter but stops himself just in time.

"I haven't been partying. Can't." Alex reaches out for his glass and in one quick motion downs its entire contents. It was nowhere near cold enough for his taste. Putting the empty thing down, he flashes a smile at a sleepy-looking Nick who has been eyeing him suspiciously, probably fantasising about calling the police that one glorious day he finally opens his zoo and Alex, of course, sneaks in somehow.

They had a few James Bond-like possible chases going on, the motorbike one being his favourite. They were all good in their own right, though, and Alex even had starred a handful of three-thirty-am messages from Nick to use in future lyric writing sessions.

"Can't?" Jamie raises an eyebrow at him, a flash of worry marring his rosy features. Honestly, what is it with Jamie reading people so well?

"Can't, well, I mean..." He gestures with his hand, eliciting a mild frown from the blond. His brain does have the crappy habit of going into a groping-for-words state in the least of convenient times. He shrugs to buy himself some more time, then offers weakly, "got no-one to go with. It's okay, though, I've had enough of partying while on tour and-"

"What about Miles?" Matt edges the question in, casually, sliding a big arm around Alex waist only to watch the man move his plump butt forward and rest his crossed arms the table. "You're like a cat today, too. Didn't let Nick hug you, now I can't pat your back, hey. What is it?"" Matt closes in on Alex and pats his back anyway. "Did you two fight? You know we'd kill that spindly Scouser if he dare fucking hurt you."

Alex shakes his head and forces a giggle out while making a mental note to stop acting like a freak. He's wearing two baggy sweaters and a washed-out denim jacket on top. There is no way anyone would notice anything and, worst-case scenario, they would think he'd put some weight on.

On the other hand, however, he's dying to tell the truth to his friends. He wouldn't, of course, no matter how wholeheartedly he wants to join Nick in his newfound worry of becoming a soon-to-be father; he knows the three men are still a bunch of die-hard pragmatics. A little bunch he loves too much to spook so thoroughly, and risk losing them. So he'd settled for listening, his heart fluttering all the same at the lighthearted discussion of baby names and tips Matt said he'd read online to pamper the expecting, mildly moody wives. The lie still added up to the list of things he'd had to keep to what he considered to be the brothers he never had. He smiles sadly, hoping the day comes when he'll finally be able to cross it all out and be honest with them, too.

"No, yeah...everything's great, really. We may go on a cruise in a few months, or a long vacation. Been thinking of getting away of it all. Just me and me Mi... go on an... _escapade_ , if you will." A corner of his mouth goes up, tasting the unusual word on his thick albeit sober tongue.

"I just hope you're not fucking eloping, eh?" Jamie picks up his beer bottle and tilts it back into his mouth. "Been saying it for ages, me. Just wait, Alex will elope in fucking Vegas like a fucking crack whore." He points his index finger at Alex accusingly, shakes his head and continues to down his third beer, "You _are_ acting weird."

"We're not marrying, Jameh. That's..."

"Alex you can't seriously expect us to believe aren't secluded enough in that house. C'mon! Herefordshire, mate! More like I-think-I'm-snow-white-so-I-live-in-the-middle-of-a-bloody-pine-forest-and-pray-every-night-they-won't-fall-and-crush-the-house-down. _Pfffffff_." Nick chimes in, slurring his words slightly and resting his chin on the table. Blue ocean gaze attached to Alex's. "Oh la la, you're really pretty handsome from this angle, Al. Look at that jaw, gods above, life isn't fair."

Alex rolls his eyes but still blushes a nice shade of pink.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say you wanna get in me undies, Nicholas." Alex winks, ruffling his hair nervously. He hates being the centre of attention when he isn't on stage. And it's only recently he has started getting really comfortable with having thousands of strangers watching him perform. "The house is lovely but, yanno, it's only so much you can do there, or in the woods..." He scratches the back of his head and fleeting smirk plays on his lips as he watches the waitress take away the empty bottles and dirty dishes. He gulps down, and continues " 'sides Miles is still working on some projects so...he deserves a proper holiday, I think."

"Al, you bratty flirt! If you were single, and I were single then _jesusfuckingchrist_. I'd fuck the living hell out of that firm little bum of yours."

Alex splutters his water down his chin as he laughs in spasms, giving his abs a workout while he's still got breath. Nick isn't one to really curse or say anything remotely inappropriate even in the most absurd of situations. It must be a hard liquor he's been drinking, and Alex absently laments the waitress had already picked it up off the table. It'd be great to see more of this side of nick, especially on tour.

Such jovial thoughts are brutally interrupted, however, when Matt subtly remembers him that they have to be back in the studio by November so he better hurry his trip and get over with it already, _nudge, nudge_.

Alex is left blinking stupidly as the chatter goes on. He'd totally forgotten. They had reserved that date earlier this year and it most likely couldn't be moved, neither forward nor back. They could sure try, but Domino hadn't got it easy this time and it had actually took him a whole month to book them in the studio they wanted, just the date they wanted: _autumn, pre-Christmas craze._ Matt's choice.

Three months from now.

A trimester.

 

 

X

Alex takes a detour on his way home, a few turns to the left, into the deep of the forest, and he ends up in a nice lonely clear. He climbs off the car but lets the engine running, knowing it isn't going to take long but he has to do it anyhow, work the tension out. He stands up in a medium-sized rock, watches around for onlookers and, finding none, he starts toying with the wind, turning it this way and that. It's so light today, he has to be extremely careful not to take it too far. Five minutes in, he's formed a nice mini-tornado, more or less twice his height, but it spins slowly around, giving out a calming cool breeze that Alex breathes in and likes to feel get through his clothes and pores. Thinking of spirals is such a soothing thing, too, much like going down an infinite water slide, excited to get to the pool, but enjoying the gentle glide through twists and turns even better so you didn't bother if it went on forever.

Still...water would be a nice addition, too.

Alex looks up at the fluffy grey clouds floating hurriedly on their way to the city. Did London have a magnet? He squeezes a handful of the big ones, directing the resulting stream to the centre of his very mild tornado. As expected, water starts shooting out around fast in heavy drops that makes the soil wet as much as the tree's long branches, the juicy leaves, the small petals and the big, the flower buds, Alex and even a wandering duck which Alex doesn't notice until it sneezes and starts quacking, walking directly towards the tornado.

Alex stops his manipulating of the wind immediately and watches what looks like a good dozen buckets full of water fall around the area, cascade-like. Alex shakes his hair and takes the state of his drenched clothes with a deep, hearty laugh. He locates the confused-looking duck soon, too, with the help of his sharp senses. The white little thing has ended up next to a tree, some five odd metres from where he was and it's quacking Alex's way, as if expecting an explanation.

How very human of him.

 

 

X

Miles is in the back patio, painting on a large rectangular canvas, when a symphony of noises start coming from the garage. He stops his tracing of a tree's outline halfway and listens. It isn't chaos-like sounds, the type he imagined Alex could very easily make if he wanted to. No, it's just...loud commonplace sounds, like he is slamming the door and the car's boot and the front door and...stomping, closer and then away, things getting put down heavily on the counter. Was that even Alex? The boy is usually overly-delicate with everything. Yet, if so, is he pissed at him for fleeing in the morning?

Miles wants to walk over and find out, but the thought of it possibly being Alex cross with him makes his stomach churn. He's being childish, he knows that much, Alex had never really come close to hurt him, physically or otherwise. They haven't really had that many arguments and, in his defence, all his life he's been repeatedly accused for avoiding problems rather than confront them. One of the first tell-tales during the high-school hormone filled years for his dad to ask him if he was gay or just dickless.

They've come a long way from that, thankfully.

"Hey, Mi...les. Hullo."

Miles draws his head back to see Alex has appeared right in front of the landscape he's painting, the very section Miles has been working on for the last hour, actually. The brunet is leaning back shyly on the upper lacquered wood rail, arms close to the sides of his body as his hands grip the bar, upper body tilted forward by inches. He flashes a quick smile at Miles, and flexes his arms to stand back straight again.

"Hey!" Miles steps back, blinking, definitely not expecting to see Alex there. With his hair wet and dripping water onto that chunky cable-knit light-blue sweater that makes him look like a fugitive angel on the run from all things good when its stretched collar slides off his shoulder.

And then he said he couldn't teleport. "Didn't see you..."

" _Yes_ , you were staring into space. I walked right past you, thought you had fucked up your canvas." Alex bites his lip and Miles offers a small polite nod. That was just typical flirty Alex, coy but teasing. Eyes shiny like he had coated them with nail polish finish. "Just so you know it 't looks lovely t'me."

"Thank you, baby" Alex blooms at the pet name, a pang of longing throbbing in his chest from wanting to kiss Miles so much, especially as the man sighs and turns to watch his canvas with a fond expression. "Everything I draw or paint looks lovely to you, though. You're too much of a flatterer to be a trustworthy critic, I'm afraid." Miles goes back to brush some fine lines, before the paint he's mixed dries. "Why...Was it you stomping your way around the house?"

"Me?!" Alex plays on, "No...it was my secret twin ghost brother. Thought I'd bring him to live with us here, yanno?. He's a bit noisy but you'll take to him." Alex pouts, a haughty little look on his face as he drags a cigarette butt around with his feet, forming a neat semicircle of ash until it drops off the edge of the fence he's dangling from. He wouldn't be able to bring himself to hate cigarettes like this, not when that easy smoky aroma blends with Miles' so well and delicately taunts him. Like those foamy ripples that draw you shyly in but by the time you turn around you're half a kilometre away from the tideline.

"Alex, what the fuck?!" Miles voice cracks and he turns around to look through the glass pane into their house. He can't spot anything out of the ordinary, but what was he expecting, honestly? To see a ghost? Horrified, he takes a good three steps away from Alex and the house. He's going diagonally, pointing his brush at the man, as if that would keep him at bay "You..."

Alex's eyes go wide at Miles' reaction.

"God, you're really scared of me." Alex whispers, glumly, his confident posture deflating as he follows Miles with his eyes, not being quite able to believe the man was stepping back and away, from _him_. Where the hell was he going, anyway? Into the forest? His car? Why not just run?

"You have a brother?!"

Alex rolls his eyes and walks towards Miles, slowly, hands up in the air. He isn't sure in what way he could look menacing while internally itching for any sort of intimacy with his boyfriend but he was starting to realise their communication and signals were getting mixed somewhere in the middle, probably due to Miles' flawed new perception of him.

"Miles it's a _joke._ Of course it was me! I was making noises so I wouldn't startle you or make you think I appeared out of fookin' nowhere!" Alex sat in the short grass when seeing each step he took would only result in Miles taking another further away from him. He closes his eyes and sighs, defeated. It seems Miles wasn't overdoing it either, his rapid heartbeat makes Alex feel a complete monster "I can't teleport meself, Miles. I'm just silent when I move and that's because I am silent. Some people are loud, some others aren't. It's not a trick or anything, god, what do you think I'm after to, anyway?" He throws his arms open. "Killing you? Have you lost your goddamn mind?!"

Miles watches blankly as Alex piercing stare mellows. He still can't reply, the words turning to lumps that clog up his throat as he sees a single tear drop quick down Alex's pale cheek, eyes still unblinking. Miles opens his mouth once, "I...No." That's it. He knows Alex isn't out to kill him, still he feels uneasy about, well, his presence, the novel edge it'd acquired. Silence reigning supreme, Alex huffs at last and he hugs his knees, quietly curling up into a ball and effectively blocking the world away.

The man had told Miles one too many not-so-nice stories about his days in the orphanage and quite a few featured young Alex being kicked around when crying like this, Alex saying he deep down knew he was going to get hit if he cried, that even the adults in charge endorsed it so that he didn't grow up to be a pussy or a fag but he couldn't help it. _Both fings, ha!_

Watching the scene develop made Miles want to throw up for letting his emotions run away with him in the first place, for acting like a selfish kid with no regard for anybody else's fears or feelings. He knew in the flesh Alex number one trigger was being walked out on, left alone. And off he goes, doing exactly that, without a second thought, like a kid would. At thirty-one, though, you can't claim not knowing about actions having consequences, it's either stupidity or malice. That's all there really is to it.

On another note, he finds it quite astonishing. How rational and obstinate he could become for someone so involved with art and the making of, where nothing much makes sense at times and the most technically perfect of paintings may feel ugly to look at and the chaotic, inexact brushings of an nobody on a canvas could make you wanna cry of happiness.

Where is the logic in that? Is he afraid of modern art, too?

 

X

Everything is better discussed over muffins- _cupcakes_ , Alex corrects. Miles had helped him to his feet and back into the house, telling him it was okay if he felt like crying that he'd been an utter idiot and that _yes,_ maybe he'd lost his mind a bit but that was a long time ago when he'd met Alex for the first time at that Vines concert and thought,

" _He belongs in a Waterhouse's painting_ , yeah, yeah. I kno', nymphs and sirens. You weren't that far off, eh?" Alex chuckles lowly in between sobs while shyly moving cups around with his mind and filling them up to the brill with tea. They are sat across from each other on the kitchen counter, as they usually are at tea time. "I was such a stunner at eighteen. Had all the lads losing their minds over me."  
  
"More than you probably realised, I reckon. Thank you," Miles smiles, reaching out for the warm cup as Alex wipes off his still wet cheeks with his woolly cuffs, sniffing, but no longer crying. "Has two sugar lumps, just you like it"

Miles whispers a soft _'oh, okay,'_ and is halfway off the stool to get a spoon when Alex flies it over to his hand so quickly the Scouser felt like it was almost his doing.

"Woah! I think I'm starting to see the appeal to this." Miles watches his hand and then Alex, who's biting his non-existent nails (he can thank his Viper) and Miles makes a mental note to compliment the boy more, to be more openly loving with him because he sometimes forgets just how much Alex needs validation and loving gestures, how it isn't just clinginess for him but a real need to be shown it isn't the same without him, that it makes all the difference if he doesn't stay holed up in his room all day, hiding. That he's missed and noticed and the more Miles thinks about it, the more he can see how having these special abilities adds a whole new layer to Alex's psyche and his need to belong.

"Everyone could kill me. You, without these abilities...you could still grab a gun or a knife or hand me a cup full of venom, right? That's silly, I trust you. It's the power I'm scared of, it's... a lot of power for a single person to have, innit? It's just _crazy_. What if there are more people like you but not with such good intentions?" Miles takes a long, particularly sweet sip of his tea before continuing, with a shrug "The world is still spinning after all these years, though. I guess it's okay, I'll...I'll get to naturalise with time so feel free to, you know, picture more of these cupcakes in the future? The ones with the purple and pink icing are out of this world, Al. Nice gayer-than-you pick."

Alex eyes sparkle at Miles change of attitude and he proceeds to tell the man how he actually bought these over in London, giving a brief account of how his day went, too, meeting the lads and all. Miles then asks about his wet hair, and clothes, Alex readily spilling out everything about his brief detour- the little suicidal duck included. They both laugh, and Alex regrets not having taken a picture of it, it'd have made great insta... instagrim?, insanegram? material his boyfriend assures him. When they've calmed down, a silence seemed to start to settle but it was only an illusion as Alex breaks it not a minute in. Sheepishly, he asks Miles about his day and his smile falters a fraction at hearing two of his paintings had been rejected, once more, for public auction. It gives Alex quite the perfect grounds for proposing a holiday, however.

Miles puts his cup down, spins around the dense dregs of his loose-leaf-tea absently. "Alex you think you can go on a plane... like _this_?"

"Women can until the seventh month. I've looked it up." Alex says, nonplussed. He munches on the last bit of his green cupcake and rubs his palms next, trying to rid his soft skin of the greasy bits "I feel okay."

Miles mirrors Alex's actions and asks, mouth still mostly full. "Where to, then?"

"Somewhere desolate." Alex left hand goes to cup his hip, the edge of something that's not visible with clothes on. He squints his eyes, just barely, gaze still attached to Miles. "I want it to be just you and me and the lit'l bump"

Miles nods and pull up his shirt sleeves, "Can it be warm, though? I'm kind of tired of the cold grey weather outside."

"I was thinking of a beach so... Maybe somewhere around northern Spain or... what about the Caribbean?!" Alex's eyes follow Miles as he got up to wash the mugs and throw away the empty cardboard box the cupcakes came in. Alex shifts on his seat, really wanting to help but figuring Miles wished to do this himself.

"Go hard or go home, huh? Oh, Al, _love_." He discards the box, bending to put it in the almost full rubbish can. Alex can't help but ogle, his hormones running wild since the morning, his ears ringing at being called the very same thing it's makes him deliriously keen. "We'll waste the whole morning spreading sunscreen on each other. And then Aloe at night because you know the sun can't stand our pale asses no matter what."

"Sounds like a plan." Alex hops off the stool and wraps himself softly against Miles, hands encircling his waist, face snuggled in the crook of his neck. "May I kiss ye, Mi?" He rubs his nose up and down along the smooth skin, then lets his teeth score his boyfriend's jaw playfully.

"Please?" He squeezes Miles in his arms and gives a playful little grind up, wanting nothing more than to corner the man against the marble edge and get his sinewy body flush against him while his belly still allows it.

Miles presses his back to him, _"Ah...Al._ "

 _It's warm_ , the hand Alex brings to the side of his cheek as he crashes right into the sweetness of lollipop-puffy lips. Miles is eager to lap up the sugar with pecks and quick nibbles Alex easily puts to shame by pulling at the flesh of his boyfriend's lip and flexing his knees a fraction, mouth scraping Miles' chin, eyes looking up as he whines thick with want, **_mine_** _,_ before diving back into the kiss with renewed momentum. It works, Miles gives way and loses himself in the steadying caresses to his nape and lower back, the soft hums that leak out of Alex as he presses himself harder against Miles thigh and moves the man farther into the counter. Miles' beloved MoMa cup is slowly sliding into a sure death as his hands go limp and forget to scrub it clean...only it doesn't, of course.

Alex hand flies just in time to grab it and put it aside, bestowing a reassuring quick peck that makes Miles all the more supple on Alex's arms as he smirks and thanks him, prying those thin lips apart again with a slippery tongue, breathing be damned. Alex complies, taking Miles soapy lingering hand in his. He intertwines their fingers together and uses the bit of leverage to turn all of Miles' body around, directing his cold, dripping palm under his sweater and right onto the warm skin of his chest. A soft whimper shoots through his lips all the way into Miles' mouth when the man gets the message and let his wet fingers roam on Alex's skin freely.

Yes, he would totally not mind Miles' hands on him all morning and night.


	3. Chapter 3

As a freelance artist and fairly well-known guest speaker for many universities, Miles is his own employer and employee so if he wants to take a two-month long vacations, he does. That’s not to say he hadn’t taken an extra week, apart from the one it took Alex to plan the trip and book it, to arrange everything and have everyone who needed to know informed about his impromptu leaving. He’d sent out some emails to Alexa and Suki, his direct contacts from the upper-crust scene so that rumours wouldn’t have it that he quit painting or any of the ubiquitous variants that could stem from that. Arielle, his secretary at his own little gallery, was informed of the trip also and left with the considerable responsibility of dealing, as politely as possible, with the clients whose paintings were still _en cours_ and would have to wait for Miles to come back. They were five clients, commissioning mainly portraits, so Miles didn’t think they’d make much of a fuss. Still, since most of time he felt they grossly overpaid him, it seemed only wise to put his pretty cursive to use and write some good ‘ld letters wherein he could _formally apologise for his unexpected departure_ but count on _their most priced virtue: patience_.

Alex laughs at that and calls him a suck-ass verbose. Miles just thanks him for the God’s work he’s doing: tele-packing. The man is sat back on the bed, on the edge of his side, with his elbows flexed back on the mattress and his stretched-out legs crossed at the knees. Facing their wardrobe with the grace he poses for fashion magazines, he’d slid open the mirrored doors and started filling up his own luggage in peaceful silence. Miles’ head would occasionally flick sideways to watch shirts and pants, folded, flying neatly to the open suitcase and handbags, the urge to start drawing Alex like this in the middle of his formal letters almost overtaking him. Hardly ten minutes later, however, he is being asked about his own clothes, and some random preference though mostly it got done by Alex on his own and Miles knows it’d be better than okay. Alex is usually the one with tidy suitcases and handbags and Miles now regrets not having taken the man up on his recurrent offers to do Miles’, too.

If he’d known it was this easy to him, he would’ve had. In a heartbeat.

“Alex? If you wanna shower or anything go ahead, yeah? I’m still halfway, almost… halfway through writing third one so,” Miles gestures vaguely with a hand to their en suite bathroom.

Shaking his elegant head, Alex yawns and lets his forearms slip back slowly. “No, no, write on, it’s fine. I’ll nap for a bit, yeh?”

“Okay suit yourself, love ya.”

“Love ye’t’.” Alex mumbles softly and kicks his quilted black leather boots off, climbing further up their much undone bed. He looks as small as he always does in empty king-sized beds, and it takes all of Miles willpower to stay put and not to join him in a good healthy nap.

“Can’t…” Alex whispers, a little too low for Miles to hear.

“Sleep tight, love.”

“Can’t wait to fuck you in the sea, Mi, awh!” Alex sigh-yawns, arm reaching for a pillow to hug lazily as he flips over on his stomach to properly sleep in his favourite position.

Miles lets it slip as one of the many inappropriate comments Alex shoots his way without much preamble. He’d be lying though if he said he weren’t looking forward to this holiday with his boy. This somewhat new version of, but also familiar enough.

 

X

  
Why take a plane when you can get there on a cruise?

That was pretty much the logic behind Alex argument and, two weeks later, Miles doesn’t feel he can very much argue. It’s been two days since they’ve arrived to the cosy beach house in Carnota, Galicia, and Miles feels already in paradise even though he’d barely seen or done much. What’s the hurry after all? If there has ever been a time to indulge in laziness it is now, especially after being so long on board and in a place so…unreal.

It’d not taken long for Miles to figure it out, after meeting more or less other five gay single ladies and men he had to pose the question to Alex, ask if he had done what he thought he had, namely, book them up on a cruise for we-are-gay-we-are-single-we-are-horny-as-fuck people. On its way to Ibiza. Alex had smirked that mischievous little flash of teeth and shrugged his shoulders ‘maybe’, Miles going slightly into mum-mode about Alex’s condition and suggesting that, perhaps, he should start developing that little thing called _modesty_.

As it turned out, he needn’t had worried. Sober, or slightly buzzed like Miles, there were still a fair share of G-rated activities to be found even though they might have slightly stood out. It was mostly forty and fifty-something people who wanted to chill out in pools and yoga classes, eat in swish restaurants with a concert pianist playing, go to actual spas, sunbathe with trunks or bikinis on. Miles liked to think they looked twentyish still, well, at least they still had that…spark for life. Many ‘shh’s and nasty looks were thrown their way when they’d get playful with each other but it was cool, Alex in revenge would make sunglasses slide off or whiskey glasses fall and spill out, or, Miles’ personal favourite, change the pool temperature wildly while he dabbled his feet in the glittery water, innocent angel look well in place. Miles had to wolf down appetizers to try and hide his laughter at proper grown men cussing things like: “Oh, dear, whatever is wrong with the water in this pool? Leo? Come here!”.

_“You don’t get a bloody Leo on a ship.”_

_“Leo seemed more interested in his fashion magz, poor Rick.”_

_“ ‘I wish you would stop making scenes like some badly-behaved rascal, Rick. The water is perfect.’ Gods, Alex. You’re bad, baby.”_

_“The worst.”_

They still caved in for the lewd plays in the theatre, and the less-than conventional casinos where the earned points in your player’s card could be exchanged not for money but for either goods from the many sex shops on board or special escort services. Dark auditoriums and carpeted enormous rooms, both places filled with rancorous and bold people that brought on an atmosphere that seemed dense and vibrant with sex. Miles had his breather ready at hand to use and took it once or twice when laughing too hard at the non-serious, sexy made-up dialogues Alex kept whispering in his ear, voice blending easily with the body language of those he was directing his light-hearted mocking at. There was room for a bit of healthy possessiveness too, on both sides, when being apart but still in the peripheries of the other’s vision. Groups of men, rarely just one, would approach them and outright set some sort of dirty-talk while stroking some limb or other. Miles was cold and nearing rude while Alex mostly kept his cool, save for one time a much younger but smoking hot lad perched on the armrest of a loveseat they had been making out in and very coldly asked Alex: _“ Excuse me, you’ll go on sticking your tongue in this angel like a filthy reptile for much longer or? You deaf, grandpa? ”_

He had a killer smile, a London-clean accent, and rosy cheeks that contrasted lovingly with his defined raven curls and clear blue eyes. Miles thinks it may have been the similarities that got to Alex so much and made him overly hostile, which, naturally, the kid took for insecurities and so kept pursuing Miles with eagerness. He eventually gave in and made out with him once in some toilet to put an end to it, all that eerie stalking. It freaked him out. On finding out, though, Alex thought it a piss-ass excuse and got seriously offended, emotions spinning in his chest a hundred revolutions per minute before having Miles blow him of his own volition and bring a much needed quieting feeling in the afterglow.

_“Had to get him off our back.”_

_“I wanna set him on fuckin’ fire,”_

_“Since when are you anything but flippant about kissing strangers?!”_

_“Since I’m not watchin’, for one” He spat, thick with feeling. “Since they are like, twenteh… and models, too.”_

Miles pursed his mouth then, ran a hand through Alex’s wet hair and looked back out to the seemingly infinite ocean. Their suite really had a perfect three hundred and sixty degrees view, being above all the others, on the highest of top floors. They were the gay cruise kings, no doubt about it. Miles thought about getting up early in the morning to get some paintings-to-be photos of the sun rising then added in a reassuring soft tone, _“It was very underwhelming, if you must know.”_

_“Did he get hard?”_

_A chuckle, a nod._

_“Oh, ya said it. He’s twenty-one!”_

_“I’m…” Alex punched the steel cold balcony railing, “The nerve!”_

_“C’mere,” Miles pulled his robe by the loose silk belt “Stick your tongue in me all you want, baby.”_

_A tilt of the head, “Go reptile?”_

_“Yeah, get filthy wif me, you grandpa.”_

_“I wanna see how that stupid face ages in ten years, the fuckin’ brat.”_

_“He’ll probably still be hot.”_

_“Mi!”_

_“And we’ll be old bores looking down at him from the other side of the pool. ”_

_“Never.”_

 

  
X

  
Eight magical days after the cruise was officially over with much glitter and plastic whistles and balloons with condoms inside you were given as you walked down the ramps and onto land. September had arrived, and they were officially in Ibiza, yet another island but not quite so. Miles knew it the moment he saw Alex gape at the sand dunes and palm trees that the moment they stepped in a taxi the man was not using his Spanish skills to get them to the airport. He insisted still, weakly, that they couldn’t be that careless with plane tickets, Alex airily reminding him he’d got them fully-refundable ones with a brilliant, self-assured, I-had-this-all-planned grin. With no other good argument at hand, Miles ended up going along with spending to spend one, only one, night there.

Those memories won’t fade soon, and he’s not ashamed to say it hadn’t taken him long to thank the universe whole he’d got someone with Alex’s special abilities by his side. Then again, in hindsight, it’s very unlikely he’d have ever set foot on a place like this if he had been on his own, no matter how desperately horny. Outside it was close to absolute mayhem, with people running naked, shagging in the boulevards, and fighting, groups gathering around to cheer and clap and, for some crazy reason, pee on the knocked-out loser. He was convinced he’d heard some gunshots too though Alex assured him they were fireworks, that he was right by his side anyway and so needed to calm the fuck down and stop being such a jumpy old man. Inside the clubs, indeed, it was better.

_“Dance wif me, c’mon-”_

That deliberately deep slur haunts him even now and he recalls Alex pushing him onto stages and under warm lights and somehow they must had won a competition for something because when they were hooking up against a wall, not at all off the public view, Miles remembers a heavy golden medal digging in his chest and how Alex kept shushing his protests with fleeting kisses and his thumb and heated promises of everything he was going to do to Miles if he kept grinding against him on the dancefloor like a naughty little tart.

Miles humoured Alex and kept on being a tease, licking stripes along the bulging veins of his neck and holding him very close as he slid down and almost got on his knees, gaping, making eyes at a very turned-on Alex before quickly getting up and resuming their messy bumping into each other. It was hot, so very hot and Miles pouted in frustration when Alex left him alone all of a sudden, telling him he’d be right back . It wasn’t as immediate as Miles would have wished, though. A few minutes swaying alone made Miles feel like drowning in his lust so, barely caring for the consequences, he pulled close a stunning blonde that’d been orbiting around them for a while, letting her rub her sculpted curvy figure against him as she pleased. Her thighs were a thread compared to Alex’s beefy legs but still he dry humped them a bit, playfully. She reciprocated with a giggle and it was good enough, for a while. The sound of his name being growled deep from a few feet away made Miles tense his back and bit his lip in anticipation. Needless to say, seeing the trashy scene first-hand had flipped off the lovey-dovey switch in Alex and before Miles could even laugh at the scandalized face of his boyfriend dropping their drinks and hissing _‘get lost’_ to the girl, he was being dragged and smacked and groped over his tight leather jeans in what he decoded as a friendly warning he wouldn’t be walking for a while after Alex was through with him.

It felt a bit dirty, being roughly taken against a wall he imagined many people had been and will be but, being with Alex out and in the public view, moaning his name and whining out loud into the deafening music felt strangely liberating for someone as structured and generally proper as Miles. He was giddy somewhere far in subspace still when Alex suggested carving out their names on the wall and maybe, one day, come back and see if they were still there. Miles nodded and smiled stupidly at him as Alex’s fingers slid one ring off his pinky finger and swiftly started to draw a medium heart.

Miles rested his head on his cotton soft shoulder and passed out.  


X

  
Wednesday 6th.  
  
At mid-week Miles wakes up feeling more like an unquiet, explore-prone tourist, just when it so happens it’s coming down in buckets.

They end up staying inside, again, doing only a bit more than sleeping and drinking tea and napping. Miles’ appetite is still on the low after the cruise but he gives Alex’s improvised apple-brie omelette a try and it’s good though kind of flat so Alex gently reminds him they need to go downtown to buy supplies because this isn’t a hotel with room service.

“Can’t you just like…picture whatever we need? I’m sure you’ve seen apples and cheese before love, haven’t ya?” Miles groans and points to his cooling food. It sort of irritates him, however the conceited look on the man’s face. It’s way too handsome for 12 a.m, and it becomes deadly when he pouts, “Aw, but where’s the fun in tha’?”

“Where’s the fun in getting my ass wet?!”

“I’ll make it up to you, c’mon” Alex winks and pulls Miles’ sleeve to him.

 

 

X

 _Monday, 18_ th  
  
“Close your eyes”

Miles calls, roughly three steps away from where Alex sits gulping down his alcohol-free cool beer calmly and staring off into the distance, thinking the other had gone off to the toilet. He himself is sat on a carved wooden chair he’s quick to find creaks funnily over the cobbled, pedestrian area that is fairly desolate at siesta-time on a warm cloudy day. It wasn’t mere laziness, there was a weightiness lingering in the air and triggering drowsy effect on all those out on the streets of Pontevedra, save for a lively group of elders that are playing cards some feet away and had invited them to join, pints in hand _._ The tranquillity and beauty of the town reminds Alex maybe he’s not that familiar with the world after all, only the shiny neuralgic points that are thrilling in their own right but may drive people to overlook the precious, antique, little gems of places. Full of art, and inevitably, history. Miles had gone an exceptional job of finding museums and tours they could take in English. They had been to two today, medium-size. Alex brain is feeling mushy but he’s fairly sure Miles would plead his way into another one.

“No, don’t turn. Quiet!”

“’k.”

Alex dives in the silence laced with soft echoes of steps, laughter, drinks being put down and clicked together, a pram bouncing with what’s got to be toy rattles and…lips. Miles’ lips. The upper slips past the slight resting gap of his mouth, crashing against his teeth while the lower cups, snags and scoops up into Miles’ mouth his own lip, where it’s licked and squeezed. He’s savoured for a fleeting moment then let go, something being pushed into the hands he’s intertwined on his lap, concealing.

He blushes furiously, hearing some not-so-remote cheers and whistles. He bloody isn’t…is he? They hadn’t properly had a meal…or be dressed nicely…or have someone to take photos of them or…

He couldn’t fathom a proposal scenario where he wasn’t the one doing the proposing. How could Miles have caught him so unawares?!

“Grab it.”

“Miles?” Alex tones with a soft edge, like he can’t believe how weirdly messy and spontaneous and public Miles is being, and he _plainly can’t believe it_. The man is crouching or on his knees by his right, he has to be, there’s a hand patting his denim-covered kneecap idly, as if were no big deal. And a eucalypt fresh scent zigzagging off into the humid climate from down below him. One or five tears well down his lids in spite of his initial negative disposition.

“Yes, c’mon, Al” Miles looks at his boyfriend adoringly, how his blush still shows no signs of receding as he slowly disentangles his fingers and opens his palms. Alex arches an eyebrow, eyes still shut.

“Flowers?!”

“Not just any flowers. Take a look?”

Wetness spills in heavy drops when he does as he’s told and blinks his eyes open. Camellias white, violet and orange are arranged neatly in a bouquet with a neat silk strap fastening it together with a bow on end. They were a beautiful bunch, at peak bloom, and now he gets why Miles didn’t let him come close to the flower shop they’d spotted on their way here. Camellias weren’t sold much in England and he’d always found them incredibly aesthetically pleasing.

“Don’t you like them?”

“I love them, I’m just…” He looks around at the suspiciously quiet group of elders and a couple of girls across that are giggling and murmuring things to each other’s ears.

“Sensitive.” He focuses his gaze back on his boyfriend, gives a timid shrug of his shoulders and scrapes the heel of one boot forwards on the rocky terrain. His heart is thumping loud in his chest still. “Very.”

“You’re cute, Al.” Miles shakes his head animatedly and goes to take his seat in front of Alex. “It’s a silly thing, I kept wanting to surprise you. Kind of hard when I dangled them in front of ya. Sure you smelt them plenty.” He chuckles.

“Didn’t, really, no.” Alex brings them up to his nose and breathes in their fresh aroma, trying to put to use his chunk of a nose. It’d really eluded him, or maybe it was in Miles’ fragrance to eclipse the others. It seemed to happen pretty usually. “They’re beautiful. Thanks Mi,” he sniffs, “so thoughtful of ye, really.”

Alex places the back of his hand on the mantelpiece, wiggling his fingers while aiming a sweet, glistening glance at Miles. The man puts his hand on Alex’s without a second thought and watches his boyfriend bring it up to his mouth, wink, and give it a firm squeeze as he presses his slim lips to it in a couple of steadying and smoochy-loud kisses.

“Gentlemen,” The waiter interrupts after what could have been ten minutes or an hour. “From table 6,”

A heart-shaped meat and cheese platter appears in between his and Miles’s drink, very Mediterranean looking and dribble worthy. It had to be the coolest elders ever, they were cheering and whistling at them, game still at full swing by the looks of it.

The men thank the waiter and nod at the group, Miles’ honest smile widening as Alex opts to further his rosy blush and look even more the flustered little gay he is. One very eager to feed Miles little sausages with brightly coloured toothpicks.

And be fed olives in exchange.

 

 

X

_  
Friday, 23th_

  
“…the bold contrasts are so well executed, too. It’s not exaggerated but it’s clear, so clear, you see it too, right? Watch her cape.”

“Aye, that.”

“And the folds, the wrinkles on her arm…to him, it were: the more intricate the dress, the better. Bear in mind tenebrism was far more popular in Spain back then. Not that he didn’t paint religious pictures, actually those are the most…you might argue those are the most famous paintings by him an’ be right.”

“Mhm,” Alex takes a deep breath and successfully suppresses a yawn. The painting was lovely, the woman was lovely in all her old-fashioned grace. It looked… _high-definition_ to him but he dare not say it aloud, acknowledging how dumb it sounded in his head already. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy visual art, he did, but his brain was too eager to simplify all the greatness in a _cute, lovely, nice, that’s a good one_ that invariably made him seem very thick and shallow. That’s why he kept his mouth shut at Miles’ conventions. “ _Look pretty and nod”._ It didn’t offend him; he knew it was for the best, knew that Miles appreciated his being there too, a lot. Absently rubbing his belly, he leans his head to rest on Miles’ shoulder, appreciating the tickly fuzzy coat fabric with his cheek. They were the last people wandering around in the cold building, or last-century’s-stale- air reservoir, as Alex was more prone to put it.

“Boring you much?” Miles asks, looping an arm around Alex’s hip and pecking the top of his head.

“Nah, it’s the last’un…been waiting all week for this one, you were.”

“Well, yeah…it opens only on Fridays.” Miles concedes, touched by Alex’s eternal patience and willingness to stick with him through his long wanders in museums.

“That’s what ye told me.” Alex brings his icy hands to the front pocket of his plain black hoodie and butts his head playfully against Miles.

“There are only five left here. And then another room, two, they’re connected, it won’t take much, I guess?”

“’s okay,”

“Yeah? We can go to that park you wanted afterwards.”

“Yeh just hold me, ‘m sleepy. Missed me nap, had this friskeh boy climbin’ all over me, ugh” He scoffs, hyperbolic as ever.

“You might remember it wrong.”

“Maybe,”

 

X _  
_  
  
_Tuesday, 27_ th  
  
“You’re a terrible leader, I don’t know why I even bother anymore.”

Alex lets go of one of Miles’ hand and watches the sleek man _swing around to his side **,**_ chest puffing out as his arm shoots proudly up in all his drunken glory. Alex loves the freedom slow drag blues allow but that isn’t enough to make him good at it, it seems. “Me dancing skills embarrass you much at the charity fundraisers too, Mi?” Alex asks, sweetly, and with a soft pout.

“Pfff, they see you as a new-rich peasant anyway, no. I’d just like it if you could stop stepping on my feet, that’s it.” Miles babbles, amused, deciding to switch roles.

Alex thinks back to the maybe a little too heavy dinner he’s had as Miles pushes him and swirls him around, back and forth, in a brilliant display of how above his own his ballroom dancing skills are.

“Mi, please. Try’t behave, luv.” Alex squirms, not at all uncomfortable with the man nibbling at his lobe or his hot body turning and pressing against his side instead. His own thigh is safe and compact sandwiched between Miles’ own and Alex is sure next song will see the man start rolling his hips at its rhythm. There’s few things as endearing as a touchy-feely Miles and Alex is as helpless as a dandelion being picked by a curious kid with one too many wishes. Still, it doesn’t mean he can altogether forget about the place they’re at. He’s the sober one after all, the caretaker. “We’re drawing looks, yanno.”

“Slog drag blues were made to fuck.” Miles states, plainly, his alcohol breath ghosting over Alex lips as he stretches his head. “And I kind of wa…want-t-t-”

“Want _to_ what?”

“Fuck you.”

Their lips collide softly before the trumpet comes on and speeds up the tempo, not that they pay mind to it. Miles is gentle though sloppy as he turns Alex to him by the back pockets of his totally unacceptable skinny jeans and he lets half his hand rest there, yes, because he can’t get all the fingers in and he sort of slaps Alex in the process so that the man laughs in the kiss and he gives up. Alex lets miles nibble at his lip and slip his tongue just barely in but when he pushes more Alex bites it lightly and makes him pull back.

“You taste,” Alex pecks in apologise, “of sharp vodka I…I can’t.”

Miles agrees with a faraway look and moves his head down to his neck, leaving Alex floundering to resume some sort of swaying that resembles dancing. He glances around and spots, completely by chance, a group of three men in sharp suits eyeing them suspiciously, the redhead standing up and nudging the others so that they thread behind him. Picturing the stage light closest to them on, Alex drags in his embrace his busy vampire wanna-be of a boyfriend towards it. Prejudice is bad, but his suspicions are proven right when he feels a shove in his back and collides with Miles as he’s pushed too. His anger is fleeting as of course the lads’ banter and foreign curses call the attention of the band, who stop playing to order the guards show the group out.

“You go on boys, you feeling the music!” The pianist says in an animated Missouri accent before switching to Spanish and apologising to the audience for having to witness such event. She switches smoothly back to English and continues her singing in whispers. Was it that obvious they were foreigners? Miles is looking down at his yellow silk shirt in disgust, his hand waving in circles at the midriff. “He bloody spit me!” Alex makes the stage light go back to a soft blue dimmer and moves them again farther from the other couples and the stage. He pictures Miles’ shirt clean and then runs his fingers down the cool, new-like fabric.

“There, there,” Alex tone is soft as his thoughts clear with the vanishing of a possible threat to those he loves. He slips his fingers in between Miles’ without looking and corrects his slightly hunching posture.

“Where were we, luv?”

  
X

 _  
_ And so it goes, the first month stumbles away slowly as they grocery shop, watch movies, tour around the neighbouring towns and make love in strange places and in slightly stranger positions as Alex’s belly starts inflating more and Miles lets out that maybe they should cut it out, to what Alex’s pupils dilate and he’s quick to remind Miles he doesn’t call the shots, though he often does, that he’s his pet and he’ll fuck him as much as he wants to, how and when he wants to and that’s the end of it, _shush_.

Once they’ve come down from their highs, however, Alex assures Miles he feels as great as ever, if anything the baby might be messing with his hormones a bit because he’s been getting a lot of more traditionally girly impulses like doing his hair and using body creams and eating chocolate, tons of chocolate, and getting fucked on a lot more daily basis than he’d usually allow so shagging Miles more is just a means to compensate.

Miles chuckles and kisses his hand as they walk down and out the picturesque alley, unseen but probably not unheard. They’ve learnt their ways around the small towns quite well and really the only thing missing in their dream-like _escapade_ is the beach. The weather has been either too cloudy to sunbath and get into the cold sea or warm but very rainy. They’ve been overusing the two coats Alex have packed and Alex won’t shut up about how much he wants to get into his swim shorts and feel the sun on his belly.

They are dining at a Mexican restaurant when the idea occurs to Miles.

“But can’t you, you know,” he clicks the cutlery on his plate more than it’s necessary and drops his tone just in case. Honestly, he’d met more people speaking English than Spanish, and oftentimes he finds himself forgetting he’s not in England right now. “Alter the weather? Tomorrow it’ll be a month, I think we both deserve a beach day.”

“Tried t’, already.” Alex replies, mouth full, a strip of lettuce hanging off the corner of his lip as he tries to swoop it back in with his tongue. “But the clouds kind of move on their own, yanno? They come back,” Alex takes another big bite of his veggie burrito, scowling when some ketchup spurts out of it and it stains his denim shirt. “Damn it,” he casts some furtive looks around, then makes it disappear.

Miles bites back a laugh and resumes his pinching of the neat triangles he’s cut his quesadillas in, “I’m so gonna miss this when we come back.”

It’s the truth, he can feel the nostalgia settling already, even if he knows it’s too early to give it a thought at all. It’s a part of him, however, that feeling that leisure time slips way too fast through his fingers and he’s left forever to try to capture it accurately in paper, to somehow immortalise it- to no avail. The resulting work may end up in a bid or his wall, it doesn’t matter, deep inside he won’t feel it does justice to the colourful, lively memories or musings in his mind. He also takes far too much pleasure in avoiding his responsibilities, having Alex by his side to entertain him being an amazing plus.

“That’s…we’ve still got a month here, ‘ey! If I’d to be blunt honest wif ye…this album, I’m…I don’t feel ready to go into the studio, really. Me gettin’ rounder just adds up to the problem.”

Miles can’t keep his cool and chokes on the thick cheese he was trying to swallow. Alex shoots him a deadly glare as if he getting even more glum and serious would stop his laughing.

It doesn’t.

“What’s so funny, eh?!”

“I think that’s quite the concept of it, innit? Or do I need get you to MTV? Here’s Alex Turner lads, for sixteen and preggy…”

“Preggy? ‘m not a bloody animal.” Miles frowns in amused confusion, failing to see the connection Alex made. It was quite ironic how his own hang on slang was better than that of a trendy, bad-boy, _yanno_ cool rockstar. “And I’m thirty one what the fuck Miles?!”

“Keep it down! And, nevermind… it’s a show.” He wipes his mouth and reaches for his drink, a weird but very tasty tequila, orange and cinnamon concoction. “It can’t grow that much in another month, right? And the one or two weeks recording takes?”

“Dunno. But just lookin’ at it I’m afraid it’s going faster than your average…thing. If you yahoo some pho-”

Miles coughs and sputters, regretting his decision to sip his lovely drink while Alex was still speaking. “ _Yahooooo_!”

“Whatever!” Alex rolls his eyes, hoping Miles could take him seriously for a moment. “Women say you’re not supposed to even see anything ‘til the third or fourth month.” Alex looks around through the thick curtain of his curls. He’s biting his non-quite-thumbnail again, but it’s idly “Now I’m supposed t’be on the second and it’s the half of a footie ball, innit?. You can’t see it with clothes on but that’ll change. If I focus on it I can feel it expanding sometimes and it’s _fookin’ scary,_ yeh?! I know nuffin’ about this, you know nothing about this. I’m unfit for this, Mi. It’s all just… wrong ‘n…wrong.”

Miles sobers as if punched, identifying the harsh low pitch that usually preceded the fatal conclusion: _That seatbelt was stuck for a reason, I was where I had to be._ He tries his best to cook up a quick response that could tide over Alex’s need for some substance in his foreseeing of the future. “We’ll figure it out together, Al. Like we always do with everything. Nothing’s _wrong_ , look at me,” Miles leans over the table and brings Alex’s chin up slowly “You didn’t just appear from nowhere. You were a baby once but from all we know it could have been your father who had you, yeah?”  
  
Alex snaps his head to the side and sits back on his chair, arms folded across his chest, “No.”

“That’s it?” Miles breaks the slightly stretched silence. It isn’t very Alex to give such short, definite answers.

“No, Miles,” he emphasises with a huff, “me dad was super controlled. His magic seemed to go out in square meters, he’d have never allowed something like this he…was very traditional in his ways, too. I don’t think he’d have liked to see me like this. Or with a man, even. He was always emphasising how I had to protect girls, respect them, keep me magic to meself and not do tricks to fly skirts up or pop blouse buttons. That I’d be deserving of no one that way.” Miles tries to refute that but Alex strangely beats him to it and goes on with a hushed whisper “He’d threw those comments casually in while we sat in the back patio and he taught me how to manipulate the elements properly so I would stop killing me mum’s plants or start fires on the grass. I don’t remember it, but he said I did it a lot as a kid. That it was normal. You see, he knew about kids. Sorcerer’s kids “

“Alex you were what? Four?! You know what I remember about being four? Sleeping.” Miles smiles but Alex is not even watching him “You can recall those bits, maybe, but it doesn’t mean the chance isn’t there, yeah?” Miles kicks his leg lightly, wanting the man to look up. “If this is happening it’s because it can happen, I know that much.”

“So, you’re saying me mom is not me mum, huh?” Alex mumbles, picking at some loose thread along the placket. “Nah, I’ve got pictures of her with the big belly. She looked madly happy. Both did.”

“Just like we will, don’t worry.”

“Yeh.”

And then it goes quiet, both men focusing on finishing eating and sharing soft looks of love. Eventually, they resume their trivial chatting and the serious exchange seems forgotten, what with Miles terrible art jokes and Alex’s way too easy laughs.

But of course he worries, a lot. Miles has been low-key worrying about it too.

X

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >>Nerd bonus:"Saint Casilda of Toledo" by Francisco Zurbarán !


	4. Chapter 4

The sky clears up ten days later and Alex wakes up Miles at 8 a.m.to softly coax him into beach clothes, because his pink two-piece pyjamas would never do. Miles grins and tries to clear the sleepy haze in his mind as he hurries to free his limbs from clothing. He does so a little too fast, perhaps, and almost falls off the bed if it hadn’t been for that steady arm that cradles his waist and moves him safely away from danger. Alex keeps his tone dulcet and low, helping Miles find his sunglasses and a hat, then taking his hand when they’re done to lead him down the stairs and out the door, Miles complaining about wanting to eat breakfast first.

It’s only when they’re sitting at a rattan table under the sun’s soft rays and by the calm sea that Miles really becomes fully conscious of where he is and with whom and how this isn’t a dream. Quite the revelation to have while spreading butter on a toast,

“At what hour did you wake up to prepare all this?” Miles looks around at the sun-loungers arranged neatly behind him and the unfolded beach umbrellas and towels and even ice chests. There’s even a sort of blanket fort stuffed with colourful silk brocade pillows inside- a refuge from the sun, Miles supposes. And then, of course there are the chairs and the table he’s sitting at, which surely weren’t here yesterday, or the day before that. The toasts and coffee he’s enjoying seem to be godsends too, and there’s fruit, too, on a plate, orange juice, and yogurt? Strawberry yogurt in a little white bowl? Yes. His ideal healthy summer breakfast was there on display, and quite honestly Miles feels even a hotel could not top this attention.

Alex blushes a deep shade of red and looks down, his sunglasses sliding down the smooth bridge of his nose. “I knew you wouldn’t remember.”

“What’s that?” Miles is licking some honey off his thumb, a little too sexily for Alex’s like.

“I fink there’s an alter ego to you, Miles. Like an sleepy alter ego. You…I’m not complaining, mind. I just thought you’d remember even if you weren’t all that conscious, like…” He balances back on his chair, a hand climbing up his nape and ruffling his wavy locks into a state of further disarray. He’s also throwing Miles that dopey, _yanno_ look but his face is not so lively and Miles puts down his cup, certain he remembers absolutely nothing. Not even a dream or a quick trip to the bathroom.

“Al? What is it?” Miles waits, trying to level their gazes. “You didn’t try to steal my pillow and I punched you again, did you? You know that’s pretty automatic, I get possessive over them very quickly.”

“Nowt like that you…” He sighs and leans over the table, sunglasses off for good. He’s biting his lip one moment, then spilling out long sentences without taking a breath the next. For once, he’s not vague, and Miles internally laughs at the irony of his boyfriends’ ways.

 

 

X

_It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s almost too hot and I’m bothered, I want to sleep and dream and be cool and fresh but it’s hot. The sheets stick to my skin and I wonder if maybe I’ve set fire to something. But I can’t hold on to the thought for too long, no. I’m moving, I’m shaking. There’s a babbling going on in my ear, distracting me, the pitch all too soft and circumventing. I love spinning, or any swirling motions, so I let it carry me in circles going back to where I began every time I seem to be close to sorting this out. I know I’m hanging somewhere in between consciousness and blissful sleep, all too lazy to do anything about it even if the outer world is falling apart. I’m caught in something. It feels the other way around however, and it’s only when I hear myself set loose a moan that the pieces seem to fall into place, click: I can see, breathe. I blink my eyes open and watch hungrily as I’m handled where it throbs and bit where I swallow. It makes me desperate, feeling so helpless so soon. I want to savour it a bit longer, push my back against your chest, get called a handful more of nasty things but I come and come and come too fast, at least for the time I’ve been awake, and there’s an order now shaping in my brain with your voice, something about me arranging a beach day and being soft and touchable and needing sun on me naked skin, fuckin’ vitamin d. I’m still trying to catch me breath when I feel warmness trickling down my lower back, a stamp of how used and dirty I’ve been but it’s good; you are. You wipe it off, get me cleaned up and fall back asleep. I stay in the embrace for longer than I should have, enjoying your respiration evening and the random kisses to my nape. Before I fall asleep again, I get up and face the cold. I forgo shower in favour of completing my part of the deal I remember nothing about._

 

 

_X_

“Damn!” Miles looks scandalized. He’d choked on his toast every five seconds during Alex’s all too explicit recollection and now he’s not sure of what to say, how to apologise. As if they weren’t all over each other enough during the daytime now he goes around giving handjobs in his sleep. He feels like a fourteen-year-old with no self-control whatsoever. “You should have stopped me, Al. Wake me up and slap me stupid.”

Alex rolls his eyes, “Yeh, very doable that is. And practical! I’d obviously go on to masturbate like mad.” His hand goes to grab a small bunch of grapes, delicately, by the stem. Aware Miles prefers the riper ones, he plucks the greener ones and scoops them in his palm, putting the rest back on the plate. He picks some from his cupped hand as he resumes talking, eyes clear as they catch in them brightness of the sky. “I don’t mind it that much. I mean, I don’t like getting me sleep interrupted but I if I had to make a list of possibly allowed interruptions that’d be kind of in the top five. And I know you weren’t that awake, either. You kept repeating _beach_ and _sun_ like crazy.” Alex chuckles, the rich sound putting Miles somewhat at ease. He gulps down his coffee in one go and shrugs a non-committal shoulder to Alex, avoiding his surely penetrating eyes. A cool breeze picks up just when Miles is turning to stare at the ocean, thinking maybe he could make a run for it and swim in fast until he got tired and drowned.

“It’s been a good incentive to mess around wif me magic, too. Now I know the key is to dissolve the clouds into air, not try ‘n push them away.”  
  
Miles doesn’t seem to be paying attention; too caught up in his own thoughts, maybe. Or the ocean dreamy ripples that crash more powerfully now against the sand. Alex helps the wind a bit, just in case Miles finds watching the simple motion at least half as relaxing as he himself does.

When the frowned expression fails to ease a fraction, Alex walks over to his side.

“Hey,” Alex takes his hand and got Miles to stand, heavy, flushing against his chest like a drunk man. The brunet wasn’t expecting it, and he’s sure his heart could tell Alex that much because he grimaces and pulls back, still holding hands as he’s walks them to the tideline “What’s on your mind?”

Miles puffs out his shame into the salt-laden air and watches his feet slowly get wet and sink as sand is drag back into the sea, a little smile cracking the hard line his lips made. “Sometimes I think you can tell that, too.”

“Am I that good, huh?” Alex turns to face him and places a chaste kiss on his boyfriends’ cheek. He bumps their hips absently together and adds, “I guess you just wanted to send a clear message and, um, given me record, heavy petting seems like a very cunning way to get my attention, yanno…”

A squeeze of his hand, a slap to his butt and Miles was trotting into the sea, knowing he was about to fulfil one of Alex’s most obnoxious fantasies.

“Kind of think is my turn now. What do you say, Mi?”

 

 

X

Alex plops down like dough on one of the beach towels he’d arranged earlier and had to will back a few times as the wind seemed hell bent on taking them away. He’s on cloud nine, ready to have the nap of his life under the warm morning sunshine after their successful rendezvous in the sea. It really is a pity he’s feeling dizzy, his stomach a mite queasy. He rubs the bump in his abdomen absently, thinking that otherwise, he may have gone for another round.

Miles reprimands his careless dropping on the sand though quickly asks if lying made his vision better. Alex hums, not really caring about things moving when he was staring into space, but he does register Miles’ cool snake-print bucket hat being forced on his round head, the brunet suggesting maybe going at it in the water, after eating and as the sun was getting harsher hadn’t been the brightest of ideas.

“Yeah? Didn’t hear ye complaining much ten minutes ago, Mi. Especially not with that attitude.”

“Yes, well… you make men lose their minds quite easily.”

“But you is all I care about.”

A replica of his own hat appears on him as if blown casually by the wind while he’s crouching in the blanket fort, reaching for a bottle of cold water. Miles turns around to check, ready to walk back and slam the shimmery, many-a-green shade fabric down on Alex’s heat-addled head but it seems the man still got his. And hell it looks ridiculous on his tame, dripping curls. He appears to care very little as he puts his sunglasses back on and stretches languidly, sticking his arse up like a cat.

“Thank you,” Miles sits next to him, adjusting this new hat and giving a light slap on that way too playful ass that is still up in the air. “C’mon, I’ll put some sunscreen on you then you can nap as you please, okay?”

“Yeh, please.” Alex cranes his neck up and lowers his sunglasses enough to make eye contact with Miles. “Get me white ‘nd sticky… _daddeh_.” He bats his eyelashes and with a cheeky wink he lays prone again, waiting. Miles keeps his laugh in because as good as that female porn voice imitation is, he’s still rather sensitive to sensorial stimuli and has yet to spread cream on a soft, pliant Alex. He takes a deep breath and after some _clicks_ and _plops,_ gets his hands on the man.

“Keep the rings on.”

He does and, sure enough, a light snoring sound tickles its way through his ears before he’s finished. It’s gentle, the sound and the vibrations in Alex’s chest and upper back, but that’s because of the sounds dying out in the sand below. He tries to move Alex’s head to rest on more comfortably on his cheek but it won’t bulge, no.

He has a mole for a boyfriend.

 

 

X

Miles had spent an hour reading a book a few feet away from Alex, eyeing him now and then. He’d eventually turned over to the left with a marked scorn, some sleep-induced spams making his grip on the belly tighten but since Miles had kneeled by him and combed his drying tangled mess of a mane he seemed to be calmer. Now the man ponders waking him, to check if he’s really feeling okay again, but also to ask for some cooler wind. Or no wind at all, if possible. The warm current that had settled twenty minutes ago has Miles feeling sweaty and out of breath and it just so happens that he’s realised he’d forgotten his inhaler in a café’s bathroom.

He could, right? Or was it taking the selfish too far, playing god?

While he considers these questions he’s hit by a romantic whim to take some pictures of the modern day sleepy-beauty in front of him. He takes out his phone off the pocket of the denim shirt he’d put on and chews at his lip, tilting the phone up and down slowly to try and get the backlight not to take details off Alex. He finds a position and holds still, waiting for the camera to focus properly as he appraises on screen the soft curves of his boyfriend’s body and the angel pouty sleepy face darkened by flying curls that won’t keep quiet now there’s no gel or water to keep them in place.

He clicks the shooter. _Perfect._ He stands up to get another from a different angle but freezes as he’s crouching to do so. A sharp shout cuts through the quiet like a slap on his back and he almost drops his phone.

“Miiiiiles. What are you doing dude?! I can see ya. Hey! Duuude! Alex! Aleeeex!”

Some clapping follows and his graceful muse startles awake as alert as a cat in danger, quickly wrapping the towel under his shoulders and looking around in confusion. Miles snaps another shot because he can’t help it, the flash ratcheting up his boyfriends’ disorientation as he raises a hand to keep the bright off, a beat too slow.

Looks deceive, at any rate, because Alex is not in the least clueless about who it is, what with those heavy steps and shrilling voice but Miles is still squinting his eyes at the figure in the distance that keeps chanting their names. Only he knows too, of course, that obnoxious _dude_ is enough of a hint. What annoying, loud, long-haired person could they know with that American accent?

Miles fumes in silence as Alex looks back to the blanket fort, to where he’d packed some of their things in a sport bag, among those Miles’ fancy satin robe so he’d a gayer option to keep his skin cool and not exposed. It doesn’t take long. He spots the little heap of expensive fabric by an ice chest and wills it next to him, throws it on. Careless, perhaps, making such a colourful, billow- prone thing fly right to his hand but quicker than turning the towel into one, surely. He’d have risked being caught halfway and having to explain a robe with only one sleeve, or worse, half.

He can always blame the wind, this way.

“Alex…the hell’s he doing here?!” Miles snaps, at last, turning and doing a double-take at the man’s new look. Alex opens his mouth twice but air is all that comes out as he focuses his sleepy glossy eyes on Miles’ stern face.

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Miles lowers his head to his hands and growls some vowels out. He slips, in between, some quick ‘ _Ican’tbelieveit’s_ and _‘fuck!’s_. Alex fidgets in his place when he sees that well-known blond approach to him, them…Miles?. He winces.

“Miles, dude hey!” Someone is hugging him from behind, Miles notices, and he feels close to being asphyxiated, the strong warm air getting harsher on his lungs. He breaks free from it promptly, coughing and walking over to Alex.

“The Miles Kane, huh, _duuuude_!. ‘Been meaning to meet you. Alex’s always going on about how artistically out of this world you are!” Miles turns around, and then Zack is lurching forward to hug a smiling Alex. Miles notices a bit of a shift in his boyfriend’s posture and a nonchalant flip of his palms, gaze affixed to Miles.

“I. Don’t. Know.” He’s mouthing at him.

Miles turns his back to the scene, feeling like sucking air in through a straw as a particular sandy blow of air hits him and his eyes water, his throat itch. When he coughs again a girl shows at his side and offers him a bottle of water.

“Hey lovely you okay?”

“And you are…?” Miles steps back, feeling she’s appeared out of nowhere. Maybe Alex’s got a point though, it feels as if _everyone_ is always sneaking up on him. Miles has to be the one with a problem, then. He accepts the bottle and starts drinking.

“Aw, sorry! I didn’t startle you, did I? I’m Zoe. Zackie’s girlfriend.” She offers his hand and Miles takes it, unsure. It looked a lot like she expected him to kiss it, and got offended by clumsy grip. He looks at her and gulps on. Zoe is petite, curvy and has a smile that partly blinds of how shiny white it is. Pastel blonde waves fall from her head and she’s got a mini-dress to match the general paleness, too. The lack of tanning in both of them makes Miles briefly worry that somehow they will try to coax Alex and him into letting they stay with them.

They would be more tactful than that, wouldn’t they? He? What the hell did Miles know about _Zackie_ anyway?

That’s he’s infatuated with Alex, magazine girlfriend or not.

“Ta, love” He screws the cap back on and quickly pads down to where Alex stands slouching. Zach is taunting him to get rid of the gown, apparently, something about looking like a old 70’s woman and being too young to be so demure he gets to catch, catch along with his urge to give the lad a nice blow on his egg-like head. He pokes the hard plastic end against Zack’s chest, once, twice. Playfully, of course. Until he gets the message and backs off, almost tripping on his big, clumsy feet.

“Hey,” Miles wraps an arm around Alex’s shoulders and shoots Zach his fakest smile, handing the bottle back. “So…Spain, huh? How did you get here? Don’t take this the wrong way but,” Miles can`t keep the venom off his voice, even as Alex is pinching his hip slightly. Too bad he hasn’t got nails. “We are here to get away from everything. Me from my job. Al from the studio and the guys, you, and everyone else who’s lovely, so lovely, it gets to a point you feel pestered by it all. Funny, innit?”

“Yeah the fans, dude! You don’t see it as much, or…” He winks at Miles, gloriously missing the point. “The girls are so horny for Al. Soon they’ll throw their wet panties at your little man. There’s this bet going on...awh, babe!”

Zack stops and holds up his koala of a girlfriend. Zoe has pounced on him, literally, arms looped around his neck, body hugging his side. Young Alex used to do that to him, Miles concedes, but he was a silly little gay thing. And nineteen. “This is Zoe. She knows you both already, my sweet angel. Had a crush on Al before, too, didn’t you babe?”

“Uh,” Alex blushes, watching the kiss with interest nonetheless. Miles just widens his fake smile and hopes for the best, whatever that would be in the god-awful situation.

They were having such a perfect day. These are the sort of things that made Miles believe in karma. He was paying for something bad he did, clearly. Maybe for when he refused to turn his music down at 3 a.m. back in college, and this nerd kid, Jack? Jay?, he had for a roommate failed his final chemistry exam the next day and cried the whole weekend? Or maybe for how he couldn’t make it to see his parents at Christmas last year? Or how about that old sweet lady he accidentally bumped into the street and made the china she was carrying fall down and shatter? That was recent, two months ago, tops. It had to be it, the lady was so heartbroken even as Miles offered to pay any amount of money for it…

“It died out as soon as I found out you prefer dicks. I ain’t into that pegging shit, I like getting fucked.” She flutters her eyelashes at Alex, and soon there’s chuckles all around him, false or real he can’t tell. Can’t care, really.

He feels his breathing hitch again and he’s attempts to push Alex back and away, to hint him he’s not comfortable at all, that’s something’s wrong.

But maybe it’s only him, again.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t seem to bring in enough air and there’s tears as he watches Zack’s face changing shapes like it couldn’t settle on one expression only. When the wind blows again, hotter and harsher, Miles’ arm slips smoothly down his boyfriend’s back and he drops on his knees, Alex still not noticing, still looking straight at Zach and going on about some crazy groupie-related anecdote that requires a lot of hand-gesturing of boobs, apparently. There’s not that many but having heard all Miles can’t believe Alex got so lost in a lewd little recollection of a groupie fan he’d let him fade into the background, ignored.

“Alex…Al-ah.” He pulls at the robe, carefully, even as his chest compresses.

Miles’s ears ring then and he coughs harder, sneaking a hand down the fabric and grabbing onto the man’s calf because he’s certain he’s dying, the inside of his lungs being singed by the sandy wind and how it scratches its way in, all sand, virtually no oxygen. _I need..._ Miles thought blurry and he doubles over in pain and holding tighter onto Alex, patting the almost hairless skin, trying to shout something, anything, but feeling all too weak. He manages to get his head up for some seconds, though he can’t see much, other than Alex, his fading chuckle and that robe, billowing in the wind, the knot giving in and a soft gasp.

“Shit!”

 

 

_X_

The first thing he sees is shadows.

His lids are heavy and lazy, falling back faster the more he tries to crack them open. There’s a trace of Alex’s rough whispers and he thinks he can make out some _‘love’_ and _‘please’_. For a moment, he’s afraid these are part of that creepy residual hearing that he’s heard about, something about it starting right before you die and go on for hours after- if you still had your head on. The act of self-questioning, however, makes him think there’s still hope. His brain is functioning, isn’t it? He’s conscious of the darkness, at least, of this new reality. As for senses he’s got little to work with, his face maybe, he can feel. The wind, blowing on it, he assumes. _Am I even breathing?_ He wants to ask Alex, but he opens his mouth all that comes out is just noise. And Alex replies back noise.

 

 

X

The second? Bubbles.

Miles wakes up with a halt, sending some splashes of soapy water flying sideways. Alex is in his line of vision soon, stepping into the bathtub too slowly, as if he’d just spotted him by chance and wasn’t sure his presence would be welcome. It confuses him. Was it all just a dream? The beach day, the lovemaking and Zack? He’d be bummed for the first two not being real, but if that was the prize to pay for making Zack just a poorly thought-out dream then so be it.

“Alex?”

“’ere. I’m right here, yeh?” Alex smiles and Miles takes in the fact that he’s not really in the tub but rather perching on the edge of it, his feet dangling in the water shyly, his jeans rolled up to his knees. He’s missing a shirt, though, so Miles gets to see the all too familiar red spots and rashes, sunburn souvenirs. He winces.

“Alex, what happened? How…”

Miles looks around, it was still sunny in their garden, and it occurrs to him the water needn’t be so hot. A deep breath was enough to confirm he was sweating like a pig. No doubt Alex prefers to stay afar.

“You passed out at the beach, remember?” Miles nods and Alex sighs, dipping his feet further in and sliding them toward Miles’. “I kneeled and picked ye up, lay you on a lounger that was in the shade. You weren’t gasping for air which was odd but there was a hellish rattling going on in your chest. I was torn; I waited for some seconds thinking maybe it was just some random fainting but you weren’t waking up, Mi, you were so still and…that’s not ‘ow yer ashtma attacks go, yeah? But then all o’ a sudden you started getting blue lips and fingertips and I felt so fuckin’ stupid! You didn’t have your inhaler with ye but I did, in the dry pair o’ jeans I’d packed in the bag.” He pats his thigh, his always stuffed pockets. “I puffed the damn thing in your mouth and you started breathing but it was weak, same as your ‘eart and… ”

“And…? I remember trying to wake up but not being able to. Feeling numb.” Miles prods.

“And then I got nervous and gave you mouth-to mouth...” Alex tilts his head to the side, offering a little shrug. “The doctor said you were fine but slightly overdosed. And that me blowing even more air in you probably made it worse. It’s all me fault.” Alex snuffles with an ugly hawking sound and looks up to the clear sky, chin sliding down from the open, I’m-holding-a-tray hand to his wrist. He soon bites at it, giving in to the tick and shaking his head lightly, partly trading building tears for empty anger. “You fuckin’ scared me, Miles!”

“It’s a tricky med. You did fine. Got to use the CPR training sometime.” Miles winks, half-expecting Alex’s scoff and blunt _I’d rather never had had to._ “I’d forgotten ‘bout the extra inhaler. I’d have gone get it. I’d…”

Miles worry about himself quickly vanishes at the sight of Alex physical withdrawing in the form of further hunching over and more absent gnawing. He glides towards him and rubs one of his exposed knees, a bit afraid to burn him but otherwise at a loss of other ways to comfort him. “I’m fine thanks to you. I needed my inhaler.”

He had been through this, as a kid. Many times. Terbutaline overdose was all too easy, and quick and dangerous. No wonder his parents were always reminding Miles, and making him repeat in a sing-song style: _only 2 puffs, 3 if it’s bad. Never four! Five is not right. Six you’re dizzy. Eight you die!_

He supposes his tolerance as an adult should be better, though

“ _Extra inhaler **s**_. I ‘ave more than one... and for what?” He laughs, a bitter little sound. “The doctor said the hot water might help you sweat it out, that it was a bad attack and a good thing it was over. I can’t stand much the heat but I was here all the time, Mi.” Alex’s teeth pull on at the skin on the sides of his wrist, leaving a neat patch of equals-sign dents as he goes, guilty eyes on Miles even as the man tries to make him stop. He’s quick to dodge Miles hand when it tries to swat his arm off, get him to stop. Miles snaps.

“Cut it off, Al.”

“You were never alone. I talked to you, held yer hand. He told me you could have hallucinations, that they could be scary. I hope you haven’t. I’m sorry I put you through this, Mi.”

He stops.

Alex puts his hands back in between his thighs, Miles missing his chance to kiss his palms and so going for the man’s elbows. He manages to steal a childish giggle out of those thin lips, a direct result of Alex watching him go back and forth between them as he angles them farther of the pool, out of his mouth reach.

“Careful,” Miles peered up at him, “I might get tired and just,” he strokes up Alex ankles and gives a minimal pull, Alex smile splitting his face proper as his witty comeback.

“Or ye could just climb up ‘n me.”

“You’d like that?”

He puckers up his lips and sits back, chest puffing out and he stretches his arms back, his back making some cracking sounds. “Might, dunno.”

“Oh but you do.” Miles goes back to sit at his spot because he wouldn’t ruin Alex jeans, shiny belt buckle or, more specifically, his phone, id, wallet, honey-filled hard candies, and everything else that is usually stuffed into his pockets.

They look at each other for a while, in comfortable silence. Eventually, Alex takes a cigarette out of a back pocket and watches it.

“I can’t offer it to you, I can’t smoke it. And yet…I want to.”

“What?”

“The smell… ‘t haunts me.”

“You didn’t notice.” Miles says, because he’s dying for a smoke too and is not entirely sure how staring at it makes Alex think it’ll help at all. Better start the real conversation they had to have and he dreads.

“Notice what, love?” Alex puts the cigarette on his thigh and rolls it, the paper laying open and back again sealed. Miles watches the tobacco appear and then disappear under Alex’s hand and gets hit by a much inconvenient wave of awe.

“You were talking to Zack. Very animatedly from what I recall.” There isn’t enough bile up his oesophagus, but Miles scorns all the same. He loves Alex with his whole being, but his need to set straight the facts was stronger. He wants to know _why_ , too. Why the man who claimed could hear his heartbeat a block around is suddenly oblivious to his boyfriend having an attack at his feet. “Must have been a whole good minute I spent coughing and then trashing at your leg. You didn’t even flinch, Alex. Didn’t spare me a look.”

“You won’t, um, believe it…” Alex strokes his hands together and a well-known rose bath salt pours down, the cigarette seemingly gone. Clapping at the remains, he continues, “Or you will and you’ll get madly jealous, _yanno._ ” A handful of curls bounce forth as he looks down to his quiet feet and starts playing an invisible keyboard on his thighs.

He does that when he wants to detach from reality and avoid stuff in the name of creativity. A more classy variant of biting his nails and staring into the nothingness.

“I don’t really think that’s possible. I am, already.”

“Wait…there’s a melody” Miles narrows his eyes at Alex and the man promptly stops, hands falling heavy on his thighs with a loud slap.

“Well?” Miles presses.

“Mi, he’s a half-sorcerer!” Alex says with an excited a-quarter-too-high pitch and brings a hand to his mouth, the gesture so idiotically _cute_ for a man his age Miles almost forgets what he’s being told. “He’s like our kid will be. We can ask him all we want to know and he may even help us, well me, through the delivery! How lucky are we?!”

It takes him a few minutes to arrange his thoughts, take in the real meaning behind Alex’s words.

_Luck, he said?_

_Luck!_ Miles doubts it. If possible, the situation they are in now is, at best, weirder, and, at worst, insanely problematic. Miles finds himself a bit shocked at Alex’s cool simplifying of facts and general breezy attitude. Apart from his parents, he’s known no-one like him, how could he possibly know Zack’s telling the truth?! Is he really conscious of the danger they could just put all them three? Or is he too occupied getting lost in Zack’s baby blue eyes?

Miles opens his mouth to lash out this questions but the hurt in his chest clings to his throat and he isn’t so sure anymore Alex won’t disregard his concerns with a wave of his very magical hands. Not while that radiant smile is plastered on his face like a shining reminder of how, in spite of all their love for each other, there’s an abyss in between them, belying their physical closeness. He may hold said hands if they lean forward but that’s just flash of moments. They exist, however, in slightly different planes of reality and Miles can’t help but wonder if maybe he isn’t the one at fault here, for leaning on the edge and holding on even when aware of the truth. Does that mean he could, _should?,_ excuse Zack’s fascination with Alex? Was it just the sorcery in their veins pulling them close? Or was his lack thereof pushing Alex away? Both?

The bitter spills out.

“Fuck, that’s great! So conveniently great, Alex. Should I clap? Bow?” The sarcasm is heavy and thick and it gets not only under Alex’s skin but shakes his bones and also, quite probably, the baby.

Alex stretches out an arm to cup Miles’ cheek and look into his eyes. “You’ll see it is, I promise.”

“That… _no_.” Miles brushes the touch away with his forearm in what looks like a backstroke. “Don’t do that. The sweet act. I’m starting to see how strongly you might feel about him.”

Splash! Water spills out in waves, and the ceramic shakes lightly yet Miles is quiet, warm. Pinned down against a round corner by lean arms and deft hands and fingers that dance up and down his spine until there’s shivers. He’s looking straight at Alex, at that playful pout that takes form when he moves to straddle Miles unbudging legs and close the small distance between them with a soft and very much unhurried kiss. Miles wishes to lose himself in it yet the urge to breathe is stronger and he finds himself pushing Alex chest back every time it feels like they’ve connected and found a rhythm.

Alex smiles sweetly and licks his lips, moving back to sit opposite but getting his denim-clad bum drag halfway and back onto Miles’ lap.

“I feel strongly about _you._ Too strongly, perhaps. You’d be surprised ‘ow often I feel like I’m having a heart attack when I’m missing ye.” Alex closes his hand over Miles’ and slides it off his hip up over to the centre of his chest. “Imagine how today went fo’ me.”

“Hm,” Miles fingers graze the sunburnt, peeling skin.

“I…How did he even find us anyway? Did he follow your heartbeat all the way from America, or something?”

“Yeh, luv. My heartbeat is very unique and totally not alike at those of the million of people that surround us; feel it. Such groove, huh?” Alex bites his lip, the impish snicker winning in the end. “He was in Ibiz-”

“Pfff, of course he was!”

“-and spotted us. Called Matt to make sure he wasn’t seeing fings and…he rat us out. Talked to him some minutes ago, well, listened mostly. He said the guys want my ass back there now and that they figured sending Zack should be enough of a holiday disruption…fookin’ cheek he’s got, Matthew! ‘m not going back, not yet.” He pauses to kiss Miles nose, “I’m with you ‘n you’re with me. Next time he calls you answer, yeh? Say I’m showering or something, I dunno. ”

“That’s your plan…my gay introverted ass handling Matthew on the phone? Bodes well.”

“Mi, c’mon... I can’t go back like this, can I?!”

“Yes, no… _we_ have to.” Miles let his hand slide with Alex guidance and he felt a pang of love, pride and…fear. _Look at what you’ve done!_ His brain taunts him. _He’s got a baby in there!_ _Alex!_ He decides to change topic, let the future deal with the future. “You see, though, even they know. Give him a week and he’ll steal your heart just fine. I see it, it’s written all over his New-York cool face.”

Sighing, Alex welcomes the distraction. He can do romance way better than unsubstantial planning ahead. “I’m sure he can’t listen to heartbeats, if so he’d realise how hopeless even trying would be.”

“Yes?” Miles eggs the man on.

“It’s you, Miles. Nobody else, yeh? You ‘ave me heart in your creamy soft palms and it’s nice and warm and I’m the happiest man alive. Wif you.”

Alex holds up Miles’ hand and stamps his lips on it, making the heat-induced blush of his boyfriend's deepen and paint his face a light shade of red.

Such a sweet, lively colour.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are some pics that show how the place looks like ([beaches](http://www.s348182523.mialojamiento.es/galeria/fotos/5272/11129.jpg) \+ [green](https://www.playea.es/wp-content/uploads/playas/3335/playa-de-larino-playas-de-a-coruna-carnota.jpg) \+ [nice solitary houses](http://noyaymuros.com/turismo-rural-galicia/uploads/imgs/playa_carnota.jpg)) :')


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is longer than usual and maybe a bit dense but I needed to provide some ~ explanations~, didn't I? Also, I'm posting this today because I'm attending a wedding this weekend so :''') Hope you enjoy yours!!
> 
> (Btw!! I once had a good Spanish friend that'd keep me up to date with the cool kidz slang but he's gone back to Spain now and we talk very little so I apologise beforehand if someone on here is Spanish and can confirm how silly my attempts at it sound. I tried folks! )
> 
> ~

 

_October 22th_

Saturday rolls in smoothly, announcing the nearing end to a finally vacation-worthy week. Alex stretches out of Miles embrace to reach for the booming digital clock and smash every button he can feel with a sleepy, heavy fist. He knows he'll get it somewhere in the centre and he does, silence reigning supreme once more as he yawns, turning again to face Miles and melt in the intimacy of their closeness. The sun slipping through the louvered shutters makes the inside of the fidgety brunet's lids go too bright and so he snuggles his face down to Miles' fresh, aloe-greasy chest. He inhales and yawns again. It's been mostly sunny since Zack's arrival and, despite Miles initial apprehensions, Alex feels they've managed to strike a balance. He welcomes the thought with a smile.

Zack had promised, impromptu, to visit them on weekends only while he was in Spain. He wasn't sure what direction his vacations would take next, if any, but he'd eyed a few constructions picturesque enough to photograph professionally and he felt he could spend a good month mixing work and pleasure. Miles beamed too, at knowing he'd be staying in a boutique hotel near the suburbs, though Alex had weakly insisted they could put the couple up, really. They had three empty bedrooms but Miles murderous stare seemed to have some effect on Zack who just waved it off, simply, with a ' _nah'._

_"Better leave the lovebirds in their nest, we'll get ours, right Zoe?"_

_"Oui, mon chevalier!"_

It was summery days then, filled with summery activities and idling around. They went shopping to a nearby port city and took a fishing lesson from a local on a whim, which Alex aced a bit too suspiciously, even for their elder, very experienced instructor, _Luis_. They strolled around the outskirts of the city in search of green areas to spark Miles visual inspiration and even visited a local zoo on Thursday, where Alex moved things from afar to play with the fawns and bears while Miles kept glancing sidelong at the swarm of kids trotting around, hugging his out-and-out strange wanna-be rapper boyfriend closer with a firm touch. Alex got tense at the caresses to his waist, public or not, so Miles tried to pick his chances timely. Walking down the one-person wide aquarium tunnel seemed a good time to try, it was mostly dark and Miles closed in behind Alex's steps to nuzzle the man's nape and check him out in a proper love-struck daze as his hand moved up the hem of both his oversized jacket and black t-shirt. He met warm skin, and little physical resistance; a neat bun smoothing over his face as his boyfriend peeked down.

"Al' reyt Miles, enouf!"

 _Enough._ There were little impulses materialising in his mind and taking him by surprise, just when he was about to perform them. Where did they come from? He's been up three nights in a row this week, beachcombing in a bit of a nervous fit while trying to find some sort of explanation, something to put the blame on him and no-one else, but even after tiring his mind out all through the dark hours before dawn, the intrusive thoughts would come back during daytime, fresh and demanding, pricking in his head for action and release.

He wants to hurt Miles.

Drop the shelf he was bending under, move the chair he was going to sit on, shatter the glass of orange juice that seemed to be permanently attached to his hand.

The ideas came and went like leaves floating directionless in a cool autumn breeze, and had absolutely no correlation to how he was feeling. One of the worst had come late at night, during one of Miles' half-sleepy romantic advances. Alex had been wide awake, homesickness nurturing insomnia as he turned the fan ceiling around, counting the loops up to eighty and at eighty one Miles had come pushing his face right into his neck, pressing down a loose fist on his chest and parting his legs with a quick slide of a knee. Pure relief, that's what he'd felt at the contact, wanted more than anything to lose himself in some heated love-making when, not unlike the smarting brought about by a forgotten open cabinet door banging on top of your head, he'd got the cold, circumventing thought.

_Burn him, burn him alive. Flames, little. Start a fire in his heart, on his skin. Watch it consume him slowly. Burn him up._

And for a moment the smooth pale torso he caressed had indeed felt hot and the throbbing in his head on the brink of stopping, as if transferred out by means of the curling of his fingers, his eager pulse, his hand. Hand he had withdrawn horrified and excused himself out instead, still in only his boxers, darting straight to the door and out, and from there to the beach. A waveless sea greeted him and he didn't hesitate to dive in, submerging underwater to picture all the fire he wanted there, in the dark dead infinity of the ocean.

_Go back._

With bloodshot eyes and a shivering wet body he'd got out and taken to beachcombing instead.

"You _go_." He mumbled, teeth chattering. "Leave m'lone!"

So alone he'd been. The following two days he'd waited until Miles flaked out on the bed, just in case. The nights were drawn long with nothing much to look at or do, and even a starlit sky on Thursday couldn't hold his attention for long. He'd passed the time talking aloud, to the baby, alternating asking with telling them off. It puzzled him much that, on command, he wouldn't get a random thought about anything. If he told them explicitly to prompt him to do something, when it was just the two of them, nothing happened. The nexus was, it seemed, Miles' presence and Alex worry heightened the more he tried to think ahead.

So what if he was able to thwart these impulses just fine for however long the pregnancy lasted? What came next?

Would the kid, baby, be able to inflict himself his wicked thoughts on Miles?

What could he do to stop it?

He could now, but just barely.

He'd stayed in bed on Friday, he really didn't mean to, but Miles' embrace and warmth and his stone-heavy lids won and he'd slept peacefully, pattering through dreams of levitating grapes and seas of ice-cream he'd drown in, but it was okay, he could eat his way back afloat. On waking up, everything seemed not any more weirder than usual, his surroundings were fine, Miles was dozing in one piece beside him and his stomach was blissfully quiet.

He couldn't wait to meet Zack.

Maybe he'd know about this not-so-little issue. Maybe he could help him...them.

He'd have to convince Miles to stay home, which wouldn't be an easy task what with the Scouser doling out i-love-you's like candy on Halloween ever since the Sunday scare but jealousy is ultimately a small price to pay, isn't it?. He'd have all his life to reassure Miles he loves him alone, that there is nobody between them. There's an expiration date to pregnancies.

Or are those abortions?

Alex angles his head to peck Miles' forehead sweetly and stands up, tiptoeing his way to the shower, well, bath. A long day awaited him and his lower back already hurt like he'd been struck there with a myriad of pins and needles, all while a sea urchin rolled happily along, back and forth, back and forth.

 

 

X

"Looking...Al...woah, _dude_! Going a bit Snoop-dog with the tracksuits, aren't ya?" Zack greets, walking over to the clearing where the man is sitting on the grass with his legs crossed.

Alex vaults himself up easily, his legs offering enough leverage so that his hands needn't move from where they rested on his thighs. Taking off his orange-tinted sunglasses, he tucks his hand in the slightly too-long sleeve and polishes the lenses with the smooth, shiny fabric. He raises a sceptical eyebrow at Zack while he's at it, feeling sometimes they didn't quite speak the same language. "Sno- _who_?"

"Poser boys saying they were into rap back in high-school...Eh, forget it. You're feeling well? What's so urgent?" Zack draws closer until his hand is on Alex shoulder squeezing and then smoothing the wrinkles at his side, the seam under no strain even when it reaches his hip. The jacket has to be at least two sizes too big. Zack laughs and pats the not-so-sculpted hipbone playfully. He couldn't feel much when it comes to people, no, but Alex seems to glow even more so than usual, blending beautifully with the fresh morning landscape. "I don't usually wake up this early, the brightness on the way here hurt my eyes like a bitch."

"Aw, I'm sure yer enof 'f a big boy to 'andle it!" Alex pouts, sunglasses back on in a flash. He shrugs an elegant shoulder and Zack turns around, just in time for when a breeze knifes through the birch branches and a slanting ray of sunshine is able to sneak into the cool, green haven of the forest to greet uneven gold patches of skin.

"Oh, Al, you're a catch." Zack's hand snaps up to cover his face and he squirms away from the light, moving to sit on a foot-wide fallen log, opposite from the rock Alex was settling on. The blond stretches out his legs carefully and balances one over the other, his hands splaying on the coarse wood behind him, arms staying tense so that his chest stands proudly puffed out. "Sorcerers are actually quite shit at controlling the elements. Always have been. My dad, for one. And of course he thought no sorcerer should care for them, either. I always found that sort of funny."

Alex tilts his head in thought and his eyes go a little wider. He'd so far assumed things he knew he could be very wrong about but that one, particularly, had always felt like a clear truth. Whatever few memories of his parents he has are like vivid little videos where he's in their quiet garden, lighting up a campfire from afar, watering the plants- drowning some, and his mum's subsequent little screams-, making ripples in their little pool, and rearranging the gnomes again and again. His father's laugh is somehow stored deep in his brain when he sang, proudly, _strike! that's me son!_ , the haunting preface to the mental images of his kid-self getting picked up to swirl around and around. Alex was very good at that spin-off version of bowling where you had to knock down gnomes with a breeze. Give him a bowling ball in real life, no magic involved whatsoever, and he'd be lucky to hit a couple of pines. "Isn't it the basis of sorcery, controlling the elements at will?"

"I guess it makes sense," Zack speaks on, his model posture still perfect in place. "Meeting in a clearing and all. It's quite old fashioned. Your grandparents or great-grandparents were probably one of _them._ "

"Zackery?"

"You really know nothing, Alex?" Zack breathes through his mouth and whips his head to the side, thinking it faster to deduce it from the brunet's body language than to wait out his silences. The stony glare takes Alex by surprise, the blue sparks not so welcoming among that fossil grey shadows cast.

"I just wanna talk t'ye. M' not asking you to give me lessons or anything. I think we've settled that Sunday."

Zack flicks gaze down to Alex's midriff. "All right, yeah..."

 _Basic physics_ , Alex inner voice turns condescending as he watches the blond lose his balance for leaning over too much, body thumping down on the grass after giving one or two turns. He rolls over to lay his back on the grass with a growl, stretching, cursing out nature for making fresh earth so comfortable but full of insects. "You said you had questions-"

"I do, Zackery."

"Cool, okay. That's fine. What I can't do is tell you our long precious history whole," He slaps his palm dramatically on his chest, his face looking up in mock. "I'm no teacher...and it's all the fucking same, dude. Blood and boring stuff in between. Wars, death, wars, treason, incest, more wars. My father never got to tell me the old juicy stuff, anyway. He said that's were it'd all make sense to me. And then he died slash got killed slash eaten by a yeti. I told you about his climbing adventures way back before, right? Failure after failure after failure..." Zack rolls his eyes but Alex could see a wet coating appear on them, and be obediently reabsorbed, as per the rules of masculinity.

He waits a few beats for Zack's heart to slow down and then adds, softly.

"What you never told me is 'ow old you were."

"Thirteen." Zack snaps back with a scowl. As if the number tasted bitter in his mouth. "And no; I wasn't 'grief-stricken' or 'distressed' or any shit words shrinks... they wouldn't listen...you know a thing or two about that, don't ya Al? How they'd never shut up?" Alex registers the slight cracking in his friend's voice and nods duly, not wanting to stir up the troubling memories that live in a blur down in the depths of his own mind. He's put them there for a reason and mustn't try to recall them, of that he's sure. A bunch of smooth blank spaces can't hurt anyone. Zack should try the same, maybe. "I was _past_ it. I was too busy getting high and being cool at school. Life goes on. Pure sorcerers never live too long for some reason, I'm very, very sad to tell you."

"Oh," Alex mood darkens, being not so sure that's something it was better to know or be unaware of. "Did he...did he have you like I'm having...?"

"No."

"Still you know others like... _me_?"

"I've seen more pregnant men coming into my house when I was a child that pregnant women in my whole life, yes. You ain't a special snowflake, Al." Zack pouts jokingly, and Alex has to consciously stop himself from taking the comment to heart. This is Zack in his element . He's hardly ever serious or appropriate, he's a wild card in many senses. Alex knows this. "I get the shock, though, I don't mean to be rude it's just...very common actually. Even more so if you are one of _them_."

"Them?"

"Them?! " Zack overdubs Alex's quiet talking with his best British accent , earning himself a light kick on the ribs.

"Duuuude, okay, let's see how fucked you are. What is it?" He claps, twice, and starts shooting questions as if read out of a list, "Your belly is getting too heavy for that small back? Is it already trying to kill Miles? You feel your powers are depleting fast? Headaches? Random noises you hear and no-else does?"

"That's...some... _yes_." Alex swallows his nerves down with each word. "I reckon that stuff's normal, then?!"

"Al, ah,sweet Al." The blond sighs, hand absently rubbing his very flat abdomen. "Time to pucker up, love...if you get through this all right maybe then you'll think twice about being such a horny little boy. Those things are dangerous, Al. They could kill you in a flash if they are in a bad mood."

"What? I thought you," Alex tele-cracks a flimsy twig swinging calmly from a tree, just a few feet above Zack's head. It lands right on his forehead and he throws it carelessly back at him, with his hand.

"Yeah, I virtually have no powers now. I can, maybe once a month, two, move some stuff around and fuck some shit up with the wind. Kinda hopeless beyond that." He yawns, loud and heavy, the arm he waved dismissively at Alex falling down and making sound. "But, hey! I'm thirty...babies are a new thing unto themselves." Alex crawls on the floor carefully, closing in on the blond, who had shut his eyes and made no attempt to continue for some minutes now.

"Tell me," Alex pokes at the skin of his arm, "C'mon, I'll...If it's true you forget I can try to teach ye. Just... tell me." He clings to the toned bicep, shakes it, "Zackery, please!?"

A grunt, a quick peek.

A smile.

A mouth moving.

"If anything of those things happened to you already it's...normal. It's more normal for them to try to make attempts on the human's life but he can go against you too if it's feeling cranky." Alex gets his hands off Zack back onto the grass. To pluck things, try to ride off the stress. "I'm guessing you've developed a nice self-control by now, though, what with living alone for so long and everything so unless _you_ want to kill yourself or your beloved Miles it should be all right. You have the upper hand, Alex, the little bastard is drunk on your power and...they see humans as a threat. Especially those close to you, they feel they might rob you of your powers, and of course they can't allow that because they want it all for themselves and..." Zack stares blankly at Alex, his lids drooping steadily with the beat of his heart. A born and made heavy-sleeper no doubt.

"And?" Alex ventures, weak in spirit but resolute to know all there is to know.

"The other symptoms are just... well your body being pregnant Al, I don't know what to tell you, dude. You won't go and actually fucking give birth to it, all right?. You'll have to picture it out, like, through the skin. Layer per layer, as if it were a caesarean only you'll open the scar with magic instead of a some sharp thing, yeah? You can then will your skin closed when it's over, leave no nasty marks or shit...but it's still gory as fuck. Everything is, yeah? You usually need help with that, guidance. My father had me watch him baby-talking these sorcerers in the very odd case I ended up getting knocked up so I'd know what to expect. Or knocking up a beauty like you." Zack lets an easy chortle come out, crisp and fresh as the grass Alex can't stop pawning at .

"You can get pregnant, too?" Alex incredulous tone is sweet, and it takes the blond man aback. It almost sounds as if he's wishing he could.

"They say you can until twenty five, but most can't past twenty...It's a very short-lived fertility. Kind of unfair, like the powers, but hey... we're a mix, right?" There's a flash of a scowl in his face but it's so quick Alex has no time to read into it. "Anyway, the process is different for each man sorcerer but they generally go into a state of serious confusion and can't concentrate enough to use their magic on what they need to. It's mental, they look in some real-fucking pain and they writhe, cry... but damn god forbid you touch them! They may burn you alive. It's supposed to be a protective instinct but it's kind of crap when they can't help themselves and still hurt those trying to. But...yeah, you'll do fine. Don't worry. I'm probably over exaggerating. I was a kid, everything looked sort of unreal and bizarre to me. I kinda liked girls best, too."

"Okay, no it's...it's better to know." Alex ponders, the new information finding place in his head and putting out many fires of doubts. "One of me main fears were that I'd have to get it out the way it got in, yanno. Scary thought, that!"

"Ooooh, you're not the first, Al." Zack chuckles in reply.

"Thank you, Zackery."

"I'll gladly help if you wish..."

"Yeah? I'd really like that." Alex peppers the shreds of grass all over the man's beard, then tucks some lilies in to top off the decoration. It'd take him years to grow one like Zack's, and it wouldn't be that appealing dusty shade of blond either. ". You 'appen to know how much is left? I'm...it's growning, innit?"

"D-depends." Zack sputters, trying to spit out the fresh green that's sneaked in his mouth and nose, stuck to his tongue like sneaky thin hairs. Alex's fond giggles are heard even through his closed mouth and Zack can't really get mad. "It's usually around five months for most," he shoots Alex's belly a considering look, "but it can be eight...or two. It'll be okay, don't worry. I think you're going for five."

Alex's stare turns gentle as he watches it, too, guiding a brushing touch down to the bottom and then back up where the bump proper starts. It feels different everyday, and he still hadn't been able to naturalise the feel of it, the weight, the implication. He opens his mouth to deter his mind from making up new dead-end, long chains of worrying thoughts. That's what nights are for. "You said something before, Zack. That I was one of... _them_? Am I supposed to be different or summat?"

Zack coos at Alex's little bursts of worry, bats his own sparse eyelashes in mock. He can't help it, really, as he's sure the brunet can't, either. As it is, Alex has taken up a lot of normally feminine-labelled behaviours, or rather, he's a lot more open to express them now. Why wouldn't he be? He's always been a _cute_ lad with a blowjob face and an ass begging to be spanked, a waste of a straight man if he'd been a little less curious- which his type, by definition, never were.

"No, uh... not exactly. It's just this stupid feud between sorcerers and ...humans practitioners of dark magic. Ya see Al, sorcerers like _you_ were meant to have a great perception of living things so they could _cure_ , manipulating the elements never really appeared in that equation. They were the good guys! Of fucking course! They made animals and people feel better! Anything that threatened their protégés' well-being they'd be against and that, at one point, became almost exclusively dark magic and humans becoming involved in it. But it's still magic, yeah? It's does not discriminate who it draws in. Thoughts are light, volatile." Zack fishes out a lighter from a jean pocket and steals one pretty flower from the bunch Alex was holding- sweet peas, by the looks of it. He sets one white petal on fire and watches it burn to the stem. Alex gapes, feeling a pinch unsettled at the sight of fast, flickering fire reducing the plant to ashes. Unable to look away, but wanting to. "Anyway," Zack blows away the remnants, then claps his palms together, fixing him with an intense look that seems to have trapped in it the consumed fire, the sparkles of it.

" _Anyway,_ the line got blurry in the 1400's what with the wide outbreak of plagues and there's this group of cool ass sorcerers who had the balls to do what had to be done, step up and learn dark magic themselves so they could combat these humans who were not so much abusing it as getting lost in it." He clears his throat with a cough and gestures with a lazy waving hand. "It's a bit of a drug, dark magic, and spells, and all that bullshit...it's hard to stop once you start and it's said people become slaves to it and unleash chaos all around. Cute little sorcerers meeting in clearings to tend to their hiding pregnant men, who in turn spent all day trying to come up with successful concoctions to give to kids with TB weren't really a match for these humans, in fact, they themselves got killed along the sick and their pet animals at a very fast rate and that's when half-sorcerers like me becomes a thing and _them,_ a slur. The majority considered sleeping with humans on the side a hideous form of abuse, however practical their fertility could be.  It's all a matter of ethics, really. Even when getting their asses massacred by the ever-powerful viruses most sorcerers also believed getting involved in dark magic would be actually becoming what they've been accused of their whole life, of _witchery!_ and evil powers that _corrupt!_ , _destroy!_ and _hurt!_. Women sorcerers were the more righteous, but that's also because they were the more targeted for witch hunts, too. On the bright side, it's mostly _them_ who actually survived and the rest is just petty half-sorcerers like me. That's what I've been told anyway, most of the pure sorcerers I know are already dead, so..."

"Wait, that means I might have...black magic in me?" Alex worries his lip, feeling a non-too logical flurry of nerves at the thought of it. He'd never seen of felt dark magic yet he finds himself cringing at the name of it alone, wanting nothing else than to chew away at his thumbnail. _Stop being so bloody sensitive, you twat._

He brings his hand back down before he could give in to his ticks.

"A blend? It's very likely. And it's _dark_ magic, Al." Zack moves to sit up with a dragged out growl, "Enough history shit for today, my throat is dry as hell. Hope you paid attention, Al. Cause fuck I ain't repeating it!" Zack's coughs get louder as he still spits some greenish things out. Alex pictures a glass of water almost on instinct and hands it over with a soft ' _yeh, sorreh!'_.

Tending to humans or animals made sense, he'd always felt a pull towards those sick or deprived in some way. Like something in them was calling him. Alex gasps happily as Zack gulps down the cool liquid, sharing his physical relief in some very odd way "You'll...you'll introduce me to them sometime, I hope?"

"Um?"

"The other sorcerers you know, I'd love t' meet them."

"No, well... _most_ , yeah. That may have been badly worded." Zack blinks and turns to look at Alex a bit too intensely, knuckles brushing on the man's sun-rosy cheeks. "I only know you," He offers a lopsided smirk as his hand falls, to Alex's belly,

"Show me again what you've done to those dreamy little abs, c'mon." Zach uses both hands to easily pull up the baggy sportwear and Alex holds the rolled-up cloth when it reaches his chest feeling shy, exposed and in need of reassurance all at the same time. The hurried little talks at the beach on Sunday didn't cut it and now Alex finds himself wanting even more to know that everything is alright and that their baby is healthy and okay and not...not some crazy murderer. What's the matter, anyhow? Zack said he'd seen a lot of pregnant men before and, honestly, only him could give him the peace of mind he so badly needs.

"Damn, Al!" Zack analises it from a distance then bends over to stick his ear just above his navel. Alex squirms a bit at the stubble rubbing against his skin and he feels himself becoming flustered when the blonde splays a steady hand on his lower back and whispers "Quiet down Al, shh..." It turns to some sort of syncopated airy strokes soon and Alex feels his breath picking up, feeling the touch it's misplaced because he can be quiet but it's the baby kicking and moving and making him ill at ease and he's not sure Zack can tell he's very close to being sick, sick, sick.

"He's a tough one, I kind of pity you." Zack swipes his fingers down the edge of his side and spares some lazy caresses to the salad bowl that seems to be stuck up on Alex's stomach, expanding every minute. Alex moves down the arm he'd flexed around his head to bit in the crook of his elbow and takes notice of a wink and a sudden sigh tumbling out of his lips.

"Wha-ah-at's...what's happening?!"

There seems to be little shocks going off all around his belly, intense, soft and mild and he finds his mind clearing of a fog he wasn't too aware of and the pains in his back ease as Zach fingers move up and down around, in careful, perfect little circles that gradually expand as he nears the edges.

His energy is precious, and Alex feels like his body is getting caught in bud-soft curlicues.

"Yeah feels nice, doesn't it? Y'all tend to love this. It gives the little parasite some other magic to cling on instead of yours." Alex nods away happily, face now buried in Zach shoulder as he breathes out from his mouth. He feels some cool drops roll down his front as he sweats off his fear and insecurities and doubts about the future. He's happy with the knowledge there's life forming slowly inside of him, he can feel its vibrant slow throb with mind-blowing accuracy. Barely conscious of his outer existence, he focuses more and more on everything he can feel inside him.

He's in awe, well and truly.

"I did 'ave this weird urge to get touched in the center...yes, right there. Woah." Zack lets his hand rest over Alex's navel, and it's actually not at all surprised when Alex cups his own two above his and hums quietly, very likely dozing off. There's probably nothing ever more vulnerable to some magic that a male pregnant sorcerer. Not for nothing they used to be secluded in groups, so that they could develop some sense together and not go put themselves in danger at the first snap of precious electricity that brushed their naked skin.

A few minutes after, he seems to resurface, breaking the silence with a unhurried low drawl.

"It feels so calming now. Kind little shocks." Alex glances up to the sky and arches his once stiff lower back forward a bit. He sighs at the waning sensations, and gingerly eases his hold on Zack's hands, blushing madly as reason starts to slowly creep up from his lower levels of conscience, where his emotions had dragged it along. He might have let loose one or two little pants as he looks at their point of contact, at Zack's tanned, broad hand on his still embarrassingly pale skin and he feels stupid at how overwhelmed he is at the simple touch. Maybe it has to do with his lack of experience, he'd never felt someone's magic this close since his parents' death. And certainly he'd never been in such a sensitive state before. Zack must know this on some level or he'd call him out on it, right? The thought that he's made a fool of himself is what ends up bursting the bubble Alex had been eased into and, on a whim, he pulls his jacket down in a go, Zack promptly withdrawing hand with a cheeky smirk.

He tsks, "It softens in the end, yeah."

 

X

Eleven'o clock.

Alex winces at the beep his watch gives and picks up his pace. His arms are a bit numb and his legs heavy as he trudges on through the sand as fast as he can while carrying a tiny, purring ball of fur in his arms. He does see home a hundred meters or so away, and his thoughts immediately bounce back to Miles. He really hopes he is in there, too, even if brooding or spiteful. Miles has a tendency to slip away in the most crucial of moments, Alex knows, to boost his independent sense-of-self and numb away any feelings that come close to threaten it. Jealousy is high on that list, and though Miles rarely admits it, it spawns from some silly feeling of inferiority in comparison to Alex's artistic prowess and, he sighs, beauty. Maybe even magic now, too? Thinking back at their conversation in the hot tub Alex feels a pang of guilt in his chest, and the urge to come near Miles devolves into a fear of being left alone without so much as a clue as to where's he's gone or when he'd come back. He'd pulled those many times before and each one, his senses had gone a bit funny, demanding him to listen and move and actively seek him out as if the concept of cities and throngs of people going everywhere were but a joke- along with free will.

Add his already too-alert pregnant state to that and...

Alex would give it to him, anyway. He'd said he'd be back for breakfast when he left at 7 a.m. and now it's nearing midday. The return had been slow at best too, he's aware, and he mentally scolds himself for forgetting it's Saturday. Who's going anywhere in a hurry at 10am at weekends? Some early-risers, maybe, running to the beach to get tanned while the sun is still mild. The bus driver had actually sized him up suspiciously when he pulled over by the desolate bus stop in the middle of the forest and he'd become abruptly tongue-tied by his quick speaking.

_"Trabajas aquí?"_

_"Ing...lish?"_

_"What here you working?"_

_"No, um... I'm just sightseeing around."_

_"Hmm."_

_Alex paid for his ticket in a flash, and looked around to see there were only two other people and they were dressed in impeccable white uniforms that suggested they might be cooks. The observation made Alex remember he's starving, which in turn led to his maybe a mite too haughty asking of why the driver wouldn't go faster if everything seem to be so lonely in the woods._

_"Tourists," the old man scoffed in a thick accent and shook his head, answering Alex's question only when they came up a paved street again and he swerved quickly into the traffic, making his belly bounce up uncomfortably. Apparently, the speed limit for dirt roads was a very low one and by the looks of the driver, he couldn't be much enthusiastic about it either. It made a little more sense if you took into account that there may be animals living out there in the wild, and cars speeding up the improvised road only made it easier for the poor things to get run over before even having a chance to move._

_"Meaaaw"_

_Alex detached his gaze off the window and looked down to his curiously warm-ish lap to find a cat was sitting there, very casually, with its long tail curving lazily around the edge of his thigh. It was medium sized, with a flat funny face, blue sparkly eyes and a fuzz of light brown fur that got darker on his sides and paws. Alex smiled at it and patted its back tentatively, lowkey wondering if his general thoughts about animals might have summoned it. His affection was corresponded with some low meowing and kneading of paws and soon Alex found himself whispering sweet nothings back to the kitty as it bumped its strong round head against his palm._

_The driver announced his stop a few minutes after and turned around, with a scorn grooved deep into his already wrinkled face._

_"No cats! No cats!" The man bent over to grab a newspaper and rolled it in his hands making an attempt to get on his feet, but forgetting he still had the seatbelt on._

_Alex is quick to beat him, hauling up the purring animal and cradling it as if it were a baby. "I'll take it with me, don't worry!"_

_"No! Siempre pillándose por aquí esas alimañas me teneís harto!"_

_"Okay, I'll take it with me! I'll take it!"_

And so he'd got off in a flash, almost tripping at the last step but he was okay, at least as much as the kitty and the baby were. There was, of course, a big gap missing checking in that list and Alex tried not to give it much thought as he pushed through, hearing nothing of importance around him as he advanced, one feet at the time.

 

 

X

There's people, there's psychopaths and then there's Alex. Miles was scrubbing his body in that automatic way that allows for creativity to pour in your brain and transform brisk showers into hour-long sessions of water-induced, naked-enhanced thinking when, out of nowhere, a hand juts out from the curtain and reaches for his upper arm. He startles and let out a sharp _the fuck!_ , as he always does, and still the hand doesn't draw back, as it always does.

"Miles it's me."

Eyes rolling back, Miles mouths at the ceiling _'you don't say'._

"Hullo?"

"Hi, Alex, _hi_." The Scouser caves in, punctuating each word a splash of condescension that loses its edge a bit when he awkwardly high-fives slash squeezes the strange lone protuberance hanging there in the air. Alex allows himself  a half-smile and asks his probably very soapy boyfriend- he could hear the rhythmic soft scrub of the sponge just fine, thank you- whether he had already eaten, because he himself was dying for some nice ol' burguers and chips and a couple of nuggets if he didn't mind sharing.

"Hmm, looks like someone's taking the wholesome, healthy food thing overboard." Miles chuckles lively and bends to grab the conditioner. He pops it open waiting some sort of comeback but as the silence lengthens he feels compelled to clarify he isn't being serious. "And 'ere I was thinking you'd come to appreciate my salads..."

Alex sags at the change of atmosphere and sheepishly swings the curtain to the side, enough to pop in his head and watch Miles' face- and half torso. "I luv your salads it's just...meat is good too, yeah? And I wanna take ye out on a date." He couldn't help the flirtiness lacing his voice or the kiss he blows in the end, caught up in Miles' eyes as they flit all over his face, like an invisible caress of sorts.

"Yeah, sure, whatever..." Miles drops his tone again and closes the curtain in a quick movement. Seeing Alex's radiant face makes him remember he's been out with Zack for hours, alone in lonely places, and sleepy. At his most adorable and affectionate.

Miles feels something tearing in his chest but it's fleeting. He doesn't want to dwell on it. He's the one dating Alex, he loves him, and he trusts him like he could no one else.

Maybe that's what makes him finicky, having so much trust deposited in one person only. He's used to assort and tag people, relate with them in topics, trust them partially and on occasion. Alex is the first to break all the barriers in him, be an all-encompassing wave that demands Miles structures to bend, yield and dissolve, even against his best judgement.

Maybe that's too what he'd never been able to paint Alex properly on a canvas. There's far too many dimensions to him and he can't visually reproduce it without switching his perceptions halfway. He can't fraction him as he does everyone else.

He can't overlook and shrug and continue to live in his safe crystal cocoon because, for once, he cares.

"I'll go change, then."

"Okay. I'm almost done, too. Wait for me."

The door clicks open slowly, and the soft purr fades lightly as Alex steps out and gives Miles some privacy.

"F'course, Mi."

 

 

X

As it happens, Alex realises he's run out of tracksuits and big shirts, half Matt's, to use. Huffing, he still strips his tracksuit off and goes to pick up Miles' discarded clothes, which lay in a messy heap in front of the bathroom door. The strong stench of sweat wreaks havoc in his stomach and he's actually relieved when he throws it all in the washing machine, retching, but otherwise entertaining the idea of Miles doing some intense working out. The lad has his bouts of energy and he sometimes takes to exercising regularly, yes, though it rarely could hold his interest beyond a season. He's one of the lucky ones, at any rate, graced with natural flexibility and a leanness that horribly belies his sweet teeth. Cutting his gaze down at his screwed-up figure, Alex leans off the sturdy appliance and meanders down to the back garden, wondering lamely if he was ever going to be able to go back to his shy 70kg. Minus the tiny ghost rays of stretch marks taking over his lower abdomen and expanding upwards. And the faded v-shape. Yes, that actually had actually been a heavy blow on his confidence when checking his naked self out on mirror a few days ago.

It's hard to feel enticing without a proper, sculpted v-shape.

Then again maybe _that_ shouldn't be a priority when pregnant.

Defeated, Alex cups his belly with both hands, a feeling still foreign and strangely intimate. He tries to remind himself there was _his_ and Miles' kid in there, their own little creation, unique, and very much alive; that this is as sweet as life could get, and that in some good years he's going to feel nostalgic watching this very baby run around and thinking back when he was but a bump inside him. Thinking back to Zack's awe and approval makes his lips curl up into an honest happy smile.

His magic had flowed freely with Zack's, and even as the man had taken one too many jabs at him, there was not a worry about his shape for him in that moment. It had been a first time for him, yes, tangling up his magic with someone's like that and yet it happened entirely by feel. That's the appeal the tribes had to it, he supposes, the feeling of belonging and understanding, of normalcy. Still, after all these years, the pull of humans is far too strong on him to even imagine doing without it.

Not that'd he'd ever want to, anyway.

A shrill ring snaps Alex out of his trance.

The phone?

He pads down across the living room, thinking maybe Miles is expecting some call and, sure enough, he is already babbling when Alex comes prancing in the bedroom with legs seemingly as lightweight as his thoughts.

The Scouser is also pulling on some skinny leather black jeans while lying flat on the bed, trying his best to hold on his breath so he could button the sinful shiny thing up. The sight makes Alex mouth go desert-dry but, on looking up  he freezes and his excitement quickly cools, like a bulb going off in the fridge. There are light purplish finger-shaped bruises peppered across his hairless chest, and a few stubby scratches on his shoulder that had caught Alex's attention for the redness surrounding them.

The steps blurry away. On the next blink his eyes give he's already kneeling on the mattress, his fingers flitting over the marks with care if not exactly permission. A handful of burning questions get stuck in his throat as Miles dusts his touch away and shoulders the wireless receiver to him.

"It's Matt," He angles the thing to Alex's dawdling hands as the boy blinks owlishly. He mutters a dry, "Hey, Matt," and goes on to follow Miles with his eyes as the man flings on and off some silk shirts in trial and fixes his hair in the full length mirror, nonchalant as ever.

There are three more on his back. Oval-shaped, but equally purple.

Fresh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * also 888 hits, really?? :''''') 
> 
>  
> 
> (i love the number 8)


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey mate you all right?”

It’s the third time the lad’s asking, with a soft knock to the wood but a crescendo tone that suggests he’s genuinely worried and not just a busybody. Or maybe he’s a fan, hoping for a hangover selfie, or whatever they make out of this. Alex admits he’s been puking non-stop for a good ten minutes now, his breath weak and just enough to keep the reflexes going, in spite of his best efforts to slip a _fine_ or _ok_ in between. The burning in his muscles is still tame compared to the boiling heat in his mind, however, and the tension likens to trying to hand-stretch a guitar string, hoping the guy would leave so he can burst the glasses, tiles and doors and…very much thankful he’s for some strange reason lingering around.

_“Came across Homme today. He’s recording. We played some rugby on the beach, with the crew. Felt like back to my pre-teens.”_

_“Ah?” Alex scowled at the chip that refused to be pinched by his plastic fork. Crack! “N-” crack!, crack!, slide!, “Ugh!”_

_“The bruises, the marks…it gets nasty, all tha’ close physical contact”_

_Alex sighed, thinking it perfect that the man had waited until he was done with his recollection of the day. Fork broken, he grabbed the salty bastard with his hand and shook his head. The thought of Miles somehow self-hurting himself had translated into a marked harsh throbbing of his temples and it was only now that he realised he’d got it all wrong. He should have been thinking sex, revenge sex. After all, misery loves company, right?_

_It was ludicrous._

_The world may as well melt before he got jealous over Josh, as fortuitous as his appearance might be. Whoever spared the blonde two or three hard looks could quickly tell the man was a brute and straighter than a bamboo stem. The proof? He had been bugging Alex for half a decade to join in random orgies, to have a taste of sweet pussy he said. It was the desert ritual, then the near-end-of-the-world ceremony, next the ‘Americanisation of the monkeys’ proper celebration. Matt, Nick and Jamie had all participated at some point or other and they’d regale Alex with tales of how dirty, and borderline degrading, things with Josh could get. Eventually, somewhere around ‘13, the blond had given up on it, said he was tired of feeling like ’heartslayer’ and wimpy girls crying to the twitter about him. He was a free spirit, he said, unable to be tamed…but he smirked, too, like he was bullshitting them big time just so he could give up on inviting them. That was the accepted theory by Nick, Matt and Jamie, anyway._

_Funny bloke, innit? Alex considered breaking this to Miles to show him how normalised debauchery had always been all around him and still he’d never taken part on it, save for in the beginning- when he was seventeen, heartbroken, and confused about what he wanted after getting in two long relationships with either sex, and getting ditched._

_That’s well past gone at this point._

_So he left it there, abiding by silence as he offered Miles a naughty flash of teeth, then proceeded to sip his cool water in slow gulps, a bait that had so far worked wonders when he stretched his neck up a bit, which he did, playfully._

**_I know you’re better than that._ **

_“Came across, meaning…” Alex sank his teeth in the cup then turned it around, chewing softly and tilting his head until he’d come full circle. Miles was a bit woozy by the time Alex puts empty styrofoam cup down, sliding it towards him with a quick wink. “You showed up at the studio, I take it. Joshua locks up, drugs up and doesn’t leave those rooms for days, yanno?”_

_Miles took the small cup and tilted it around, knowing it was empty save for the glow of saliva were Alex’s lips had been, all around the brim, the little dents his squirrel-like signature. Holding back a smile, he tossed it on the tray with the other trash and slid back his almost-full own one in return, his fingers lingering for a while when Alex closed his hand over the way bigger cup and squeezed Miles’. “Not this time around, no. I went jogging by the shoreline and spotted him by chance. He was playing his guitar there on a pier, for free. A little group had gathered around to clap and sing along. He was with John, too.”_

_“John? Our handGnome Ashton?! With Queens?”_

_“Yeah…they’d make a funny couple, don’t ya think? John being so tiny and shy and, well…Josh.”_

_“YEh…J’n’J” Alex sucked on the cherry straw of Miles’s full Pepsi cup and looked out through the glass panels. There were people traipsing around the verdigris old font to which all the pedestrian lanes lead, men in messy shirts and flip-flops, pruner young girls but equally summery in their denim shorts and vivid crop tops. He heard the wisp of a long skirt and zeroed in on a little girl with braids that had just passed them by, running hurriedly to the ball pit two booths down. He loved this, the background sound, all around him and alive. It quieted his thoughts and helped him focus on the world around him instead. He picked up on Miles slow munching of his monstrous big burger and blinked his eyes shut._

_“I don’t like ‘im hurting you.”_

_It’d come out like a bullet, his brain registering the sound along with Miles and its significance. He stared at his boyfriend blankly, at a loss. Hadn’t it been a thought? No, he had mouthed it, and with quite the steadfast conviction if the echo in his brain is to be trusted. There was a possessive ring to it, and the riled-up intonation you’d imagine paired with a fist to the table or a deep growl or huff, only he was calm inside, a blooming flirtiness that had never before led to anything other than sweet tension, heated touches and titillating banter._

_It didn’t add up._

_To him._

_Miles, on the other hand, seemed to light up in increments at the remark, firing back how he had to entertain himself somehow when Alex went on his little dates with Zack, what led Alex to point out they weren’t dates and Miles spitting that there’s only so much to do in four hours alone with someone, clipped words that seemed to pierce into his chest, and he spilled bitterly the words ‘that’s what you think o’me? Might as well spell it out, go ahead.’ and Miles had shrugged twice, unsure but all the same going back to the beginning of times when Zack had uploaded a photo of Alex bending over to pick up a guitar and captured it ‘c a k e!’ on his insta-fuck or whatever. From there on it had all devolved in a tense clash between two opposite views of reality with rising tones that were only partially covered up by the hullabaloo of children sprinting around and with an erratic Alex that began losing hold of his wording the more he hurried to correct Miles but the sentences came out messy, chopped and, on looking back, he’s not even sure what the hell he meant by “Zack completes me.”_

_It sounded awful, that wasn’t up for discussion. What he intended to convey was that Zack may continue, through the sharing of his knowledge, to complete Alex’s self-image and little back holes of doubts. He could be able to finally make sense of the past, of the lonely years, of what he was on a deeper level than just the realm of his capabilities and, for once, cut short the guessing and actually know the possibilities of something. Of how his baby would be born. How it would grow and develop. Take off the blindfold he’d never asked for._

_Articulation be damned, he made an attempt to grab Miles hands in his but the contact seemed to spur on the already very hot Scouser. His normally friendly eyes had become pinpoint pupils that looked down on him as he got called a liar, a cheat, a leech and a thief of hearts, peaking with that broken tone that got Alex snapping and bursting the lights above them, the glass shards coming down on them like some twisted sharp dew of sorts and Miles had stormed up, exasperated, saying he was going out for a smoke, Alex eyeing the silver lighter on his beautiful hand and getting again the vicious thought_

_Lit him up._

Maybe the purge his stomach has been going through is just his body trying to swipe his mind clean of everything dark and mean-spirited.

It didn’t belong in him, couldn’t.

_X_

“Could you go get me boyfriend? He’s out smoking, I think…”

Alex collapses against the tiled walls and catches his first proper breath in fifteen minutes. It smells awful and he stupidly remembers he hasn’t flushed the toilet. He scowls and lets his mind do it, his body feeling not entirely his yet.

“Yeah, Al…man, sure! Hang on a min, okay?”

Lovely. Of course it’s a fan. He’d be all over the twitter, the goddamn in-star, and that online book of faces soon. It’s possible the man could be coaxed to keep his mouth shut by offer of a selfie, perhaps, but Alex isn’t too keen on fans knowing his whereabouts or seeing him like this, with a face that’d surely show he felt like being thrown headfirst into a pond and would drive the press to seek him out, find out whatever they feel entitled to know. He yanks a handful of his loose-but-not-enough chalky summer sweater and starts knocking the clutched hand against his chest, in the hopes of bringing an inrush of air that’d swipe off the clingy warmness, dry the cool sweat.

The door swings open some minutes later, quick steps soon following “There’s no-one, man, I’ve looked around.” The man breathes out, clearly agitated, “Everywhere.”

Alex bumps his head against the wall and thanks the poor soul, holding back the worn-out growl he wants to let loose very badly when a stretched silence makes it obvious the man isn’t leaving.

He’s fast to stagger to his feet still, the need to get out of there overriding the fear of shame as he wobbles out and heads for the sink, maybe not as confidently as he had wished but he does wash his hands and face, rinses his mouth and reaches out for some paper towels when he’s done. He glances sidelong at his sallow face, tousled hair, unwanted popped collars and untucked long shirt tails, sleeves that wouldn’t stay rolled up for long and he stops, conscious that watching it only fuels that loony feeling he’d get absorbed in their bagginess, their weight pulling him down, down, down, down, down…

“Hey!” A hand lands on his shoulder and shakes him lightly, resting there when it’s done. “I could give you a lift if you need, I don’t mind.”

“Can you faggots take your business elsewhere…or be silent about it at least? Christ! Y’all scream so much, my five grandkids are quieter than youse it’s fucking unbelievable!” A shout came from a faraway stall and Alex almost cackles the absurd turn his suffering has taken.

But, hey, the old man might be right. It’d be far from the first time he’s being hit on in a public bathroom anyway. Bold move, especially when people don’t know if he is even into men. This guy does, this guy recognised him and had just heard him say he’s a boyfriend. Young wild ones, the lad couldn’t be a day past twenty-two, really. He is blond all around, blushy and has what Alex thinks to be a too soft-looking face. That’s usually a dead giveaway. It is rare for straight men to use creams. They might shave weekly and try fancy perfumes but that’s about it.

In a snap of hope he wishes the lad might be lying about Miles, so he smiles back, mutters an amused “I’ll walk, ta.” and dashes out, or well, sways his way as good and fast as he could without falling or running into overexcited kids.

But, sure enough, Miles is nowhere to be found. Alex breathes in the cool air and paces into an alleyway, not wanting to believe Miles had it in him to just leave him like that. Lamely, he hopes at least it’s all a result of his coming back and seeing no-one in the booth, forgetting Alex is swiftly turning into a puking machine of a man, and that he too is a man, which means he could’ve easily come into the men’s restrooms as well and check Alex wasn’t really there before letting his fury rocket up even more and feed on his conspiracy theories.

Taking out the phone, he dials Miles’ number from memory because clicking on the contact seems too detached at the moment. He waits out throughout the first _,_ “C’mon,” three, “…c’mon,” rings, “…come on, Mi!” thinking: _‘stop this. I love you’_.

_C’mon._

“What now?!”

“Where the hell are you?” Alex’s barks back, the hand previously on his forehead slipping down and covering half his face.

“On a rooftop, view’s nice.”

“Miles, what the fuck?! Why did you leave?”

“ _You_ left,” Miles puffs out sharply, the sound coming close to overshadowing the clearing of his throat that follows. It stings Alex to hear them, to feel a pain so ultimately sweet but loomed over by the guilt that comes from wanting to smoke so much and, equally, much hypocritically, to rebuke his limits-are-for-the-weak asthmatic boyfriend. A puff, he’d really ki...koala climb a cactus if that meant he’d get to fill his lungs with a lengthy warm puff.

“I were throwin’up in the bathroom, Miles. But ‘f course you went jumping to conclusions!”

“What?” The man threads on in the same quiet tone, only stripped of its loftiness.

“Ye heard me. Been emptying me stomach like a proper weak drunk but…nevermind, it’s nuffin’ that’s new. ” Alex cuts his gaze down to his baby-bump and runs a hand down along the underside of it, wishing he could actually physically hold some of its weight with his arms. His lower back is stiff and full of knots already. Maybe he should ask Miles for a massage, his hands surely could do no wrong. “I’ll come to you, what street are you on? What’s the building like?”

“I don’t know.”

Alex sighs and watches his knee come down as his unlaced trainer scrapes down on the wall he’s been leaning against. His body is propelled forward when he presses his heel down on the bricks, gets moving. “’ow come you’re always climbing up on rooftops and terraces and then you just ‘don’t know’?”

“Dunno.”

“Well, that helps.” Alex shoots some quick upward looks, squinting at the day’s brightness, and takes a deep breath. He picks his way to the font, his eyes occupied scanning the possible ways a pissy Miles might have taken and finally settling on a pedestrian street where some hippie-looking teens were selling handmade jewellery. It was all mere guessing based on experience, he prefers to keep the usage of his abilities on the low so long as he felt weak and overstimulated by the growing crowd of people, the size of which hasn’t been around in a while.

“It’s got reflective glass all around, and it’s broad, not very tall…an office building, I reckon. There’s a fire stairs on one side, I didn’t have to do much to get it down. The view is phenomenal, _ah_ , Al, I’d love to paint this landscape.”

“Okay,”

The sound of wind picking speed mixes with that of the shutter. “You always did it then?”

“I did what?” Alex searches his pocket for candy, an elated hushed ‘ _yes!’_ coming through when he brings his hand up and sees his pick is actually a honey hard ball. His sore throat could definitely use that.

“How are you gonna find me? There’s so much people, so little… it’s like a sea. I could jump into it and be drifted far away. How’d ya find me then?” A brief silence follows and Alex tries very hard not to walk into every person as he trots on with a firmer rhythm. “Could you find me in the sea?”

“Miles...you’re just watching, all right? You always do. It’s not the sea, you can’t… jump.” Alex stretches his neck back up, head turning left and right to search for buildings, mirrored buildings. A strange feeling of dread began to slink its way into his head, partially messing with his vision in the process so that he could see nearly every the particle buzzing around in the air. “You don’t even like swimming that, much, eh?”

“I bet you could.”

“Miles we had a fight, it’s okay…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just a metaphor.” He puffs on. “Thought you knew one or two things about tha’.”

“I do.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Please, I love you.”

Alex stops at a crossing, leg bouncing as he actually waits for the light to turn green by itself. He doesn’t want to hang up but is afraid Miles might, thinking his words insincere while in his Zackery-hostile current mindset.

As it turns out, though, Miles opts to go down the ignoring route. “There’s a café with a green and white stripped awning opposite, ‘Manoes Paolos’ I think it says on the sign.”

“Manos? I know what manos is, are…” Alex allows his tone to go puckish.

“Pffft, really?” Miles sneers, playing along. “I’ve been to high-school, Al. It’s a boring old rock, just like you. _Mano._ ”

“You _monolingual_ pleb!” Alex drawls each word with emphasis, a smile cracking at Miles’ easy _‘pretentious ass’_ growl of a comeback. His man was quick on the trigger.

“Ma-nos means _hands_ , my dear Miles.”

Miles frowns, looking ahead at the grey clouds gathering on some spots far ahead.

“I wanna hold yer mahn-?”

“Ohh, please,”

_This smooth fucker_ , he thinks and, much less tonally, follows said fucker’s natural lead. “Saaay to me.”

“You’ll let me be _yer_ man.”

“And,”

“Pleease, Mi, luv!” Alex purrs, unashamedly free-versing.

“Say. To. Meee.”

“You’ll let me hold yer hand.”

Miles takes a deep breath at the smooth change to a conversational lazy low pitch and feels that bubbly mood settle along with the idea to challenge it, the definite, one-way serenade feel to it. Because that’s what the cover they’re covering is, sickeningly sweet and romantic and maybe he’s got a soft spot for it, yes, maybe he’s watched _Across The Universe_ five times with Alex and ended up snogging him senseless the time this one cover came in, popcorn bowl rolling on the floor and all.

“Mmmh…Yeah, youuu. You’ve got-”

“that _lyingcheatleechthief_ something, huh?”

“Alex!”

The brunet shrugs, almost walking into a woman as he zags horizontally to the right where he spots a broad, mirror-like, properly out-place-looking building. On coming closer, he squints at the three-dimensional letters on top that read _‘Accenture’_ and briefly wonders why accounting is still a thing in this computers-can-do-it better era. He frowns, thinking back to Miles’ words. “It hurt a bit, t’be honest.”

“So I’m trying to be romantic to make up for it and you fuck up! My favourite cover, my favourite line, you’re…I was so into it, laa. I can’t.”

“’appens.”

“You’re… _you_ are.…”

“Terribleh good-looking?”

“Among other things, yeah…”The line goes static then, and he peeks curiously over the hard steel chain link hip-height fence, a hand on the cold steel rod on top so he could lean forward. He’d never been afraid of heights, quite the contrary, actually. He speaks into the line, hears his echo. “Alex?”

“’ere. Right be’ind ye on the ‘rooftop’…terrace.”

Alex puts his hands down on either side of Miles’ narrow hips and whirls him around, pressing his fit figure against his own less dainty one. He walks them back away from the edge and the supposedly great view he has no eyes for, not as Miles body goes almost completely pliant in his arms, feet getting dragged on the concrete, arms hanging loose from where light hands hook over his shoulders, diamond sneaky head angled beneath his chin already, sniffing and very likely laughing too, internally, at his pick. Vanilla. He avoids sweet perfumes like the plague on hot days, feeling they stuck on his skin, made him feel dirty but today it just felt right. At least as much as bringing up a hand to hold Miles neck up and down a little- _“Yeah, you,”_ -his heart leaping at the view of the man’s already closed eyes and slightly pursed lips, the question _‘want me to kiss you, baby?’_ losing ground to the ingrained lyrics, pure longing guiding the cracking, hardly on key purr on.

_“…ye’ve got that something. I fink you’ll understand.”_

He pulls the man’s upper body closer and their lips get pressed softly together with a little sound. Alex lets it be slow for a change and takes brief breaks between pecks, once fluttering his eyes open and feeling his eyelashes tickle with the other man’s as he catches a glint of dangerous cognac under the slow blinks of bedroom eyes and bids his lids fall too. Enveloped by a tame darkness, he caresses up and down the man’s neck and curls his hand on the cool silk fabric that sticks to his boyfriend’s hip, lapels tucked in tight jeans as it is. It works and the Scouser relaxes that slightly annoyed pout, giving Alex the chance to suck his lower lip into his mouth, eager to replace the cloying honeyed taste with Miles’, go on his tiptoes and steal his breath away, the nicotine on his palate that did him no more good than it does him.

“Mi, _fuck._ ”

It is him, though, the one to unglue his lips with a marked pant. Miles shoots him a smirk and licks his lips, loving to see Alex get caught in his own little games, to grow flushed at a simple kiss he’s initiated, carried on and ended. It should be no surprise the man comes close again to snuggle up against his cheek, curls getting in the middle as he chuckles-coughs at the feeling of Miles’ growing stubble rubbing off his papery skin, pawns at his head while Miles looks down at the reason he can’t properly line their bodies up together.

A burst hot air passes his ear when the brunet quiets, a soothing deep voice along with it. ”Thought that was a line meant to be said face-to-face.”  

“Mm hm. Yeah.” Miles ears perk up at the sound of animated chattering and he brings up his head to look around. Some smart-dressed people are filing out to smoke in groups and throwing them weird looks and little smiles alike. He looks down and realises with a flash of panic that they’re actually standing on a flat round skylight. He smacks Alex forearm and attempts to move them, getting placating _shhh’s_ in return as if he hadn’t broke any glasses ever, or knew nothing about elemental physics.

“You don’t think you’ll fall, do you? I’d hold San Andres’ fault together if you decide to stand on it to paint it.”

Miles huffs, glancing upwards to a passing cloud before resuming eye contact. “I’m dating such a hopeless fool.”

“But I can’t fool you, eh?” Alex taps his nose with a silly smile, squeezes the man in his arms. “No, I’m an open book to you.”

Miles tilts his head and says nothing, thinking that, great kiss and warm embrace aside, he’d still like to cross out the Zackery Michael chapter, rip it out or whatever it is writers do when they see something is bad and shouldn’t make it to the final draft.

But that’s Alex decision to make, and if his unreleased songs piling up in their little cellar back home tell anything at all about him…Zack will be let to linger on as much as he pleases.

_X_

Alex is staring at the wall where all the sketches Miles has done so far during this trip hang, because of course he’s pictured them in portraits already. The view of the ocean from the cruise suit remains his favourite, though their little cat Pippa, and a blurry grey vision of the beach are stunning, too. For the most part Alex had spent the afternoon reading a sci-fi book he’d packed last minute called _“Citizens of the universe”._  It isn’t his preferred genre, quite ironically, but it’d been a surprise, wrapped-up-in-newspaper book sort of purchase so he feels he really can’t complain, even if the plot seems exceedingly prone to leave loose-ends in the name of making the reader _think_. He would try to, and take some breaks like now, but his thoughts rarely shun the chance to wander off on another tack and soon what is meant to be Robboccina fighting the resistance in Jupiter becomes Pippa across his chest and sweet eyes and getting up to serve himself some cherries, pop them off their stems and into his mouth as he checks miles out, see if he’s still shirtless. He is. Daydreams ensue as he gets back to the air-conditioned bedroom, feeling coquettish but trying to force brain to concentrate on turning pages.

Five minutes in the task there’s a vibration going off against his thigh and it makes him  shift, fit his kneecap on the back of the other one as he starts thrusting his hips sideways, dope smile firm in place as he marvels at how Robboccina is managing to overthrow the Jupiter’s corrupt government on her own. Then the tingling stops and he stills, resuming the gentle rocking motions only when it starts again. It must be the fifth time the phone’s ringing when his conscious mind wakes up at last and reminds him that he should answer the vibrating thing, not absently fuck it.

Colour blooms in his cheeks as he fishes his phone out of the deep pocket and slides his thumb to take the call. He whispers next, throat surprisingly dry “’ello?”

“Alex? It’s me, Matt. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

_No worries yeh just fuckin’ me phone, mate._

_“_ Nah. ‘m just…”He yawns and stretches, feeling his joggers grow tight even as he rolls over to his side and kicks Miles’ pillows away. “ _horny_.” He concludes because it’s true, then tries to think of ugly hyenas eating deer, wooden dolls, spiders creeping in his bathtub.

“Ahh, give it a rest mate. Nobody can be taking it twenty-four hours a day, dicks need a break. Same goes to-”

“Not mine,” Alex breaks in with a hearty laugh, guiding a hand down the elastic bands, into a very much warm place. His fingers curl easily and move, teasing but soft enough to make him go cross-eyed.  The thumb he’d sucked cherry juice off still damp as it draws circles sensitive skin, taps, drags a nail in _-“Ah!”_ He bites down on his tongue and roughs up his touch, thinking it best to just get it over with quick.

“…your arse. I’m sure it’s the spanking, mate. It’s swollen up!”

Arrogance breeds in his chest as he snickers. “Keepin’ track o’ it, huh?”

“Drummer’s perks…and roadies’. Your random crawling and slo-mo slut drops are breaking hearts among the bi-curious, Al.”

“’s called s-sqs” Alex hisses, very much afraid he’s given away what he’s really doing, namely, toying with his balls, giving them a squeeze…or five; trying not to get too bothered at the feeling of lazy precum gathering in beads when he switches back to stroking, having no one to lick the stick off him. “squats.”

“You can’t never fuckin’ wait, can you? Jesus! We’re not in high school anymore.”

“Cranky.” His arm cramps, and it adds to the sweet torture. “What so you wanted any-waY Matt- _Matthew_?!”

Air is breathed out in the line and then Matt’s voice turns commanding. “Okay, listen up. You’re coming back next Monday, Al, it’s set. We booked you the first direct morning flight. It’s just a week: you focus here, we finish this baby up and then you go back there energized to shag Miles into the next week or whatever it is your sleazy asses are gettin’ up to, ‘kay? I’ve sent ya the boarding pass by e-mail, you know the drill: just print it or show it out in your phone screen, okay?”

“Miles is going.”

“What’s that?”

“Matt I can’t come.” Alex laughs stupidly at his poor phrasing. “Not yet, ahhh, fuck!” He mutters and whines and it’s pathetic, really. “Can’t go back, I mean. To London.”

“Alex you can’t be telling me you _can’t_ take a two hour flight, c’mon!”

“I am! It’ssss….complicated” Alex whispers.

“Wow… that’s a first. Does it come in the gay butterfly lifestyle package or what?! I-” He starts backpedalling almost in the same breath “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. It’s just we’ve done most of the work on our own already and now you come and drop this bomb on me, mate! I don’t get it, Alex. What’s happening? Are you sick or…struggling with something, on…on rehab, Alex, you can’t keep this from us! What is it really?!”

“Rehab, yeh, from Miles- _ohhmm._ I’m okay Matthew! Just…wait, will ye?” Alex presses the screen down against the mattress as he tightens his grip and begins effectively fucking his fist, imagining it’s Miles instead and he was downstairs with him, not a single care in their minds as he pushed him against that canvas and he squirmed and smeared the fresh paint making a mess all over and giving that helpless high whimper and backward thrust as he pleaded ‘ _deeper al, please_ ’ and Alex got overwhelmed pressing his midriff harder against Miles’ already curving spine and urging him to come with a bite to his ear and slow pumps that eased him into giving it up and showing who he belongs to .

That does it. His palm cups up the residual of his imperfect fantasy and he gets up to wash it off in the sink, his phone following him in the air.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what’s up.” Alex begins, feeling his ideas a lot more ready and organised as his dick deflated.

“Al, it’s Jameh. You done already?! ”

“Oh James. Yeah,” Alex’svoice cracks in embarrassment as he turns the faucet on and washes his hands.  “I’m… okay. It’s nuffin’. Did…did I piss off Matt much?”

“Ehhh, kinda. It’ll wear off, don’t worry. There’s always a way if you don’t feel ready to come yet…”

“No, I did. I do, _ugh_ , sorreh.” He splashes his burning cheeks and face, minimally shakes his head at the feel of cold water, lips blubbering.  “It’s just… I’ll have to stay ‘ere for a bit longer. Me ‘n Miles…we’re on vacations, yeh, but also looking for something, you know?” His mirror-self smiles back at him, but it’s hesitant. “I…I’ll tell you all about it when I come back, I promise. Just know I ‘ave to stay here for a while longer, and that everything is okay, will be, too. Miles, though…” He eyes the shower in the corner keenly, memories of smooth soap and hands coming to life in yet another place they hadn’t got creative together. “Miles can go. He knows were my notes are and the guitar parts, heck, he’s even helped me write some. He can go and record them wif ye so the mix is solid instrument-wise. Then for the vocals…there’s…We came across Josh around ‘ere…we, well, Miles. He’s recording with the Queens’ and Ashton, apparently. I’m sure he could lend me a mic for some hours to fix the vocals, maybe produce them, too, I dunno. Then I’d send back to you for the final mix. Words been good about studios in Spain so it should be fine, right? I…I want this record to be killer, I’m not just slacking off, yanno.”

A brief silence follows as Alex patiently waits it out, biting the inside of his cheeks.

“No, of course. You’re…eh! You’re an over-achiever, Al, no doubt about that,” its seriousness made Alex doubt whether the blonde was being ironic or not. ”Sounds good enof for me, I’ll try to win Nick over and call you back ehh …how’s that?”

“James you’re a gem.”

“Ehh no, I’m no diamond. Just trying to end all the fucking drama. It’s been mayhem without you, fookin’ hell. Domino excs rushing in every hour to take you to an interview or, eh, fookin’ photoshoots, even when we’d told them knobs one-hundred times already you weren’t on England!”

“Ah James monkey Bond is back, I see. I kind ‘f like Domino…please don’t get us kicked out, yeh?”

“Asking too much, Al.” He snickers, mischief pouring out through the sound before it’s cut off abruptly. “Take care, okay? And stick with John if we go ahead with this. He’s good…one of the best. ”

“Hm yeah, can’t wait for ‘im to get me hooked up with the real deal …”

“Chess masters, eh? Chess tournaments?”

“Love that lad, he’s a genius.”

“Ehh ‘f course you do. Fookin’ nerd!”

_x_

You can draw the before and the after. The in-between if you’re feeling skilful. Miles had done everything, feeling each time that was it, he was getting it right at last, but always ended falling short of the mark somehow. It isn’t self-depreciation, he has trouble accepting the flying leaves, mussed curls and askew hats in his favourite artists too. And that’s because he feels wind causes a flow of movement, a continuum you’d be absurd to think of capturing only a part of. What would you get? Stillness. Even with objects lingering in the air, stillness. He wants to get the complete sequence, the infinite snapshots in one and as ambitious as he knows it sounds he is trying, outlining wave over wave and towel over towel and fur over fur until their sequence is complete. It isn’t proving to be overly difficult but the question of whether to paint everything with mostly solid colours or give in to a generally blurry state is haunting him.

“Is everything just snapshots to you?”

Miles knows Alex must have been perching in one of the lone plastic chairs because he started to smell a strong lemon scent a few minutes ago, and there’s only one person he knows that could ruin a tea so thoroughly and claim it was a calming beverage as they down it in slow, long, silent gulps.

“Mm hm?”

Miles puts the pencil down on the ledge of the beechwood easel and turns around. He is greeted with the sight of a neat, hairless jawbones and damp, fresh-looking hair that is blessedly gel-free. Miles appreciates the shorter tresses as they steadily fell while Alex bends further sidewards, trying to swat a mosquito that was attacking his bare feet. Miles gnaws at his lip and makes his way over there, knowing from experience Alex does taste sweet in many places after a hot shower. Or during.

“Let’s say you’re okay and not feeling dizzy or sick or anything.” Miles stands blocking the sun and easing a hand back up Alex’s cheek and temple and into his leaking locks. He twists some around his fingers and pulls lightly until Alex looks up, pout dissolving into an easy smile as he eyes Miles’ hold on him playfully. “What do you see if I start spinning around fast? Cropped versions of me spinning or just…blurriness.”

“A bit of a blur, yes.” Alex bobs his head to the right, becoming all pimples when Miles doesn’t let go at once. His eyes widen and shine and even though Miles unclenches his fist then, he was way too busy reeling over the fact that Miles’ first impulse was to pull him back into place. He bats his lashes coyly and leans closer to Miles’ thigh “I see everything just like you do. I could focus on making it go away if I ‘ad a purpose in mind, luv.”

Miles took some tentative steps back, a probably very differing-to-Alex’s idea forming in his mind “Can you move me?”

“Ha!” Alex sits back and blows some steam off his tea, a little too pensively for Miles’ like.

“Al…can you?”

After a sigh, and some stuttered ‘ _I’s,_ Alex shakes his head and brings up the cup from where it was resting on the gentle slope of his belly. “Same as with animals.” Shrugging, he sips on his tea, and then cranes his neck up, looking down at the beach. “Pippa!” He shouts and snaps his fingers. That should be answer enough. “Y’all ‘ave a will on your own I can’t just…force me way over yours.”

“Even if I wanted to?”

The cat comes bouncing up the porch like a bullet, elegance regained only when she shakes off the sand and looks at Miles accusingly. Alex of course takes to cooing the thing and reproaching Miles half-heartedly as he pats the kitty’s warm head and asks it if it was all right, a water bowl appearing in a blink and Pippa almost tackling it.

Alex gives Miles a hard glare to until he confesses.

“I needed a bit of… _life_ in my landscape, laa.” He gestures vague circles with his hands in the air. “And she was hanging around here so I thought: _hey! I should carry ya and put your lazy ass on a sun lounger!_ She did not complain.”

“Ye wanker!”

“Worrier.”

Thirst sated, Pippa seems reenergised enough to meow and purr at the top of her small lungs. Of course, it isn’t long before she’s busy curling herself around Alex’s ankles, effectively dusting off any nasty insects that dare attack it and, perhaps more importantly, marking him hers. As she’d taken to do after he showers. Alex chuckles at her antics and exchanges equally animated meows, Miles kneeling to pat the fluffy thing in remorse and offer some cooing apologies, too. Meanwhile, he steals some looks up and lets the question slip again, with an air of insouciance, as if finding out Alex could move him around wouldn’t affect him in the least. ~~~~

Alex tenses, slightly, just enough to notice from up close.

“I…I’m not sure?”

“Try.” Miles stands up again and spreads open his arms, somehow sensing Alex is more than capable of doing this. He’s just being shy about it, surely. If anything else the trust and faith Miles has in him had to be the guide to his wonderful magic that is more accustomed to dragging things inconspicuously than making them fly. A troubling thought, maybe, when you appreciate what a rich inner life Alex has, how much creative potential that could boost his magic possibly goes to waste in mundanities because of the need to hide and restrain. It still bleeds through his music and love, whatever tiny spectrum comes through but…is it enough? Is he really empty of frustration or just choking it back? Miles wants to help either way, he wants Alex and the baby to expand their capabilities and use them as much as possible because it’s a part of them. It dawned on him a few minutes ago, when attempting to draw the light towel that billowed way too fast in the wind: Alex has probably felt disabled for most of his life. And he’s reminded every time he is in people’s presence, he has become used to self-inflict it on himself. Like chopping off an arm again and again and…

“Move me to the right.”

_And around, into the hot tub. Hold him down._

“No,” Alex gnarls his free hand at Miles with a harsh expression on his face, as if he was trying to catch something hanging in between them. His eyes darken, coming close to resembling cool onyxes and Miles felt drawn to that shiny sparkle he’s to assume is the magic vibrating through and around Alex. He hasn’t ever seen such deep, starry eyes before in anybody else.

He felt like falling.

_Yes_

“Stop! Stop it now!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a [link](https://play.spotify.com/track/5B6ptpMpf9Zr6xbBcL03Ha) to that beautiful cover^^ in case you don't know it!


	7. Chapter 7

_October 24th_   
  


_“No.”_

That’s too what Miles had said, after Alex’s frenzy had subsided. And yet here he is, on a plane, alone and bitter and hating Mondays with a passion. It’d all started with Alex not quite tele-dragging him, even when he’d felt his skin tickling everywhere, like a thousand ants were tiptoeing their way up and down about it. It didn’t hurt or bother him much, not really, but he gleaned from Alex reaction maybe, it was something to worry about. That or he’d lost his black bronco again…in the depths of sea.

  _“Alex, the fuck, my head was fine being dry!”_

_“You feel it still? Mi you ‘ave to tell me. Fookin’ talk Miles!”_

_“No, it’s gone, Alex, it’s gone. It’s not like there’s anywhere to move me here now.”_

_“Okay, that’s…that’s good, yeah.”_

Only maybe it hadn’t been. Miles found Alex reserve vexing, like on some level he wasn’t deign enough to feel that side of him, a theory lent support by Alex giving him a wide berth even as the waves seemed to pull them closer together. With the illusion came a string of fragments of reasons, half-baked in their spontaneity, half-shouted… half- felt? They were meant to explain how Miles _needed_ to go back to London for a week, record the guitar parts for the new monkeys’ album and understand Alex was better off staying and convincing Josh to share the studio with him for some days, maybe John, too.  He’d phrased it more wordily, of course, but that was the sentiment: Alex, procrastinator extraordinaire, suddenly bringing to life twelve songs off the bat with little to no help in less than a week- yes, that very same man that had once put on hold a recording session because he’d lost his lucky skull bracelet and ’had’ to fly to Italy to buy a new one.

_“What happened to ‘Josh locks up, drugs up’ then?”_

_“Worst-case scenario he’ll be rolling on the floor, too damn high to notice me face or weight or anythin’.”_

_“Didn’t seem like it to me.”_

_“You were playing rugby Miles. Tha’ sport where all you do is pounce on people and hit them, yeh?”_

_“Always so knowledgeable, laa. What’s with that anyway?!”_

_“I’m just saying I’m a lot less innocent than you on that matter… and that I actually know Joshua past the superficial pleasantries and roguish smiles. He’s far more creepy than funny, Mi.”_

They’d gotten out of the water in time, after some intense staring contest which Miles felt he lost, especially when Alex slinked up to his side to snatch his hand and run thumb alongside his wrist, feel his quickening pulse.

_“Why is it always me giving in ‘n giving up, Alex? You’re making zero sense and you know it, laa. If it were anyone else…it is one of my pet peeves: people lying right…right to my face.”_

_“I am making perfect sense, in fact. You see, I-”_

_“ **I see** you take me for an idiot because I’m in love with you, think that’s a free yes to everything you plead with that pulchritudinous face, well…no!_

_“Pul-what?!”_

_“Yeah, wow, he knows words too! Maybe that’s why he finds a walking dictionary of a man appealing! I won’t go! Deal with fucking it Alexander.”_

He’d waded out, tension easing with each heavy step until he’d left the sea behind and was free to dive into the sand for some type of warmth since his usually off-the-charts passionate partner seemed hell-bent on getting rid of him as fast as possible. And giving him a cold, too. He felt the salt pricking at his eyes and deep into his nose but it was ugly, vicious, jealously blooming in his chest while Alex sat next to him and, nonchalant as ever, started to list all the reasons Miles should go.

_“You wrote them wif me, not James. You’ve got the feeling to it, it’s not the same Mi!”_

_“It’ll only be a week. Then you’ll come back and we can head off somewhere else if you wish.”_

_“Missing each other is good, yeh?”_

_“Hey, we’ve gone apart for much longer!”_

_“You know I need to be left alone at times, physical state aside.”_

_“We’ll stay in touch, I’ll be in the studio just like you. Teach me again how to set up the Skype thing, if you want, and we’ll see each other!”_

_“I love you.”_

_‘Then come with me’,_ the words melted and dried in his mouth, dying as he was to spit them but afraid of a possible slip-up, of Alex’s pretty pretexts running out and giving way to the hard cold blow that would be hearing him confess he needed time alone _with Zack_. Because magic, baby or whatever. There was nothing he could do to dress up the all too obvious fact.

There is no way that baby could be his, not when Alex loses it when trying to touch him with his extra-senses. He feels an utter fool for thinking otherwise, for brushing off the elephant-in-the-room feeling so readily. What is there to doubt? Alex had cheated on him, been probably for a while, and now he has a conflict of interests: new record, dealing with Miles, keeping Zack happy and near, hide from the public view. He’s caught in a mesh of friendship, loyalty, responsibility and especially towards Miles, probably, pity.

Even so, he can’t call Alex’s bluff on the recording problem itself. He’d been a fair time on the receiving end of Matt’s growling and begging these last days and from that only it was clear that finding a solution to the problem couldn’t have been put off much longer.

So he said _yes,_ knowing it may very well be the end. That there may not be vocals, That this could be the last time he sees Alex at all. That he might be planning to run away with Zack and start a tribe somewhere green and tranquil like it’s probably his dream, his subtle joke about Miles having the skills to replace his vocals if needed but a hint to the prize he’d give him for being such a good sport.

The idea of Alex giving up professional singing makes him sick with fright. Of the monkeys’ discography stopping at five, forever.

Just imagining it brings ready pictures of his worst asthma attacks, of the nervous ones he’d got on rather dire situations, like when his parents divorced after years of trying to making it work, or when he was forced down to snort a line of coke at seventeen by some senior guys. There’s a little list, yes, but he’s sure Alex effectively disappearing like he were dead isn’t an experience that’d go down gently on him. Having Alex break up with him only, he’d often pondered, would feel like being run over and breaking all bones at once, being left helpless and confused and wondering how you got there in the first place. Add poor breathing to that and the knowledge he’s been living a ten-year lie and then the picturing stops. And it’s all static and silent and nice.

Miles eyes the bottom of the empty whiskey tumbler he’s been clutching and puts it down, with a thump, then turns to shut the shade over the window he’d been staring out from in the same fashion. He folds his arms and flutters his eyes closed, wishing for a numbing sleep as constant as the engines’ dull thrum.

Everything’s in order in a black hole.

 

 

X

He knows it’s stupid, very stupid, so outrageously absurd and stupid. He’d win the stupidest person alive award if anyone could read his thoughts right now, he’s certain of it. Still, romantic moods set siege to his brain every other day, making his self-esteem vulnerable if he’s falling on a dry patch. It _is_ stupid, of course, what little rational part there’s in him insists his self-worth shouldn’t be measured by outside factors but there’s that ingrained fear, always lurking, that he’s somehow going to be cast out and left alone and although it starts with Miles it expands and soon he’s thinking back to Matt lashing out and Nick focusing on his family and Zack thinking him a burden and it gets more and more far-fetched if not stopped in time but…What started it?

It’s so stupid.

Yet the frown stays, directed not at his wet hair or unnecessary dark sunglasses, no. It’s his pristine neck and jaw that has him out of sorts, the lack of love bites and hickeys therein. It doesn’t help that the shop has half-mirrored walls all around, surely, but he had been feeling the absence of it all morning, as he guided Miles through the passageways and staircases and even as he hugged him goodbye and wished him a safe trip. He thinks he might have sensed a flare of pure emotion there in the way Miles wrapped himself tightly around him, arms thrown right under his armpits, pressing. He wasn’t kissed, though, and a gruff ‘ _goodbye’_ was all he got for a reply. No _Al, Alex, baby,_ or anything.

He blinks and breathes out through his nose, bringing his gaze back to the steam coming off his macchiato. It’s far from his ideal beverage but the words were wrung out of him when he placed his order, he wanted something with a soft smell, maybe fruity, but his mouth went off and blurted one of Miles’ favourite caffeine bombs instead. It’s all right. It’s the kind of corner coffee shop Miles would’ve liked to stop by if they hadn’t had to sprint their way to their gates because they both slept through the alarm. The blame could be placed on him, he reasons, Miles seemed awfully ready to go to sleep at eight and maybe that’s where it all starts. Sunday had been a strange day all along what with Miles’ erratic, distant-but-not-so behaviour and Alex’s hesitance to point it out, instead sticking to the weird separated siting, silent sunbathing, and hand-holding abruptly cut off by Miles sliding his hand away after a minute or so. Worried about it being somehow his magic washing off him, or kicking in some deep survival instinct that moved him to take distance, Alex nodded and went along tiptoeing in a string he wasn’t sure it was properly tied at the ends. And it so happened it wasn’t, or maybe he’d gotten too heavy and broke it.

It was a quiet washing up, then taking turns in the bath and lying down watching some replay on the telly. Alex kept catching Miles stealing glances, just as he had when they’d watched a movie earlier but there was no invitation to cuddle or even get closer. In a weird way it felt like the earlier days not of his relationship but of their messy friendship, folded arms on their chests and yawns and falling asleep on the same bed because why not. Only the tension was missing, and everyone could have their off days for sure, so when Miles turned his bare back to him muttering ‘ _goodnight’_ and switching off his lamp, Alex followed suit. He shut down the telly and closed his eyes, not rolling onto his side because his belly made it hard to breathe but also because he’d feel more sharply the vibrations on the mattress and the heat going of Miles and it’d all add up to make him worry. Those rushes of longing still came, along with some flashbacks of the how their farewell nights together usually went, the hyperbole-worthy slow make out sessions, the chain of alternated blowjobs and handjobs, the kissing everywhere, the marks, the fast fucking, the slow lovemaking, the who-lasts-longer desperate shags. It was all a trifle too over-the-top, and they usually ended up sleeping close to nothing and high on each other in a way that made parting all the more difficult. But the memories remained, to summon up and replay and the marks there, throbbing, to tap and press and check. Alex needed them, the proof that he was wanted, it was that same foolish need that got him setting his fears of rejection aside and turning Miles to him slowly, stroking his shoulder, asking him to open his eyes and watch his pout, which he did, offhandedly, even as Alex dropped his hands to his chest and played slow circles.

It was bad, as simple and plain as the word itself. Alex regretted it afterwards like he does now, while sipping his macchiato and pretending the shudder came from its bitter taste. Was it angry, violent sex? Did he finish too fast or felt like he couldn’t? No. He came, and it was normal sex and it lasted what it usually lasted even if his spirits were being dug underground. There was just no more emotion to it than you’d put in to lace your shoes or knot your tie, Miles had set that passion-draining mood Alex couldn’t break free from it until he came and was actually thankful it was over. The first alarm went off when the smaller man broke from Miles’ hurried kiss to score his teeth down his jaw, his tongue thirsty and ready as it poked on the fresh stubble, ready to nibble right on the edge and leave a little mark.

That was the first no, _no marks_ , and even as Alex stretched out his neck then, Miles kept himself near his lap. He’d yanked off his boxers and tossed them aside, and took a hold of him even faster, silence stretching on as the brunet watched the action carefully, bashfully even, and clarified he didn’t feel like topping. And that was the second, nigh deadly, _no_. It wasn’t explicit but Miles’ bored reluctance and accusatory looks killed the spark in an increasingly confused Alex, whose cheeks burnt at hearing Miles mouthing off about how he enjoyed far more topping, and his lower body agreed apparently and he nodded so that next thing he knew the Scouser was fucking himself on him, which was sexy in its own right, only not enough to make it feel nice, intimate. He’d his eyes s screwed shut early on and was going at odd rhythms Alex seemed to match always a beat too late even when his sole focus was on the physical plane, what with Miles’ curt orders and the terror that on top of it all he was going to have to worry for performing poorly. In a last-ditch effort to connect to his lover and feel something else than flesh slapping against the like he sat up in a go and stamped his lips against that surprised parted mouth, a hand on his neck, the other on his grabbable narrow hip, trying to quiet him and give him back some leverage as things often went when he topped. But he was shoved back down, _no_ , hands clasped together against his cheek as Miles held him down.

_“Just…come. You wanted to fuck me up, didn’t you? C’mon, don’t get shy now.”_

_“…‘Al’?”_

“ _Shhh.”_

Miles placed his free hand on Alex’s forehead and pulled back his hair in a fist, scanning his expressions as Alex looked down and tried to slip a hand down to touch him, to which Miles reminded all he needed to do was fuck him harder, so he did, fumbling through the last stretch to make the man get his and somehow getting dragged along in the process, empty moans floating about the room until a hand landed on his mouth and he became vaguely aware the silence rule still applied…and on continued as he was let go and had no weight pushing down on him. The light was off when he chanced to take a look around, startled by the sudden, short-live burst of…nothing. He deliberately slowed down his breathing and pretended to be asleep as he listened on Miles rustling about in the bathroom. He felt him plop down again on the bed after some five minutes, a sudden soft combing of his damp curls he wasn’t expecting but gave him hope until Miles sighed and dropped his hand.

“It’d be easier if you just held a pillow down against my face.” He murmured, a mocking ‘ _yanno’_ thrown at the end before tucked himself into the bed and drifted off almost on command.

Did he know?

Alex thought it best to let it cool. He could have confronted the man in the morning, made a point again about his magic being to serve not hurt but it wouldn’t be entirely true. Not with the baby, and if Miles could doubt and even take a dislike to him, who he had known for more than a decade, it was very likely he wouldn’t stand the baby from the go…and how could you raise a child like that? Miles was anything but an amateur at shutting out people he didn’t like and the baby might get worse sensing it. No, by all means it was better to take the blame; it wasn’t meant to last much longer anyhow, right? Zack had assured him those impulses will stop once the baby was born and not longer surrounded by Alex’s magic. He’d learn to develop his own and Miles would be none the wiser and he could love it and care for it like it should be.

It was just a hard period he’d have to pass.

He just needed to be as strong as he could and not let his emotions run away with him just because things weren’t flowing as seamlessly as he’d thought they would. Wasn’t that the appeal to life? Things going out of balance and people struggling to find it again?

Picturing gets you only so far.

Still…

Still he pictures two hickeys on the side of his neck. It’s a little pleasure, a fantasy made a graphic for self-enjoyment. He isn’t hurting anybody, just trying to boost his self-esteem amidst waves of longing and closeness he can’t quite fulfil. Twisting the heels of his palms once more on his eyes, he breathes out and lets his hands slip down his cheeks. He leaves the mug only half empty after some shy swigs that warm him up inside out and goad him on to shoot a coy look at the mirrors, assess the leave-like shapes, take in the purple mixing with the pink and how nice it contrasts his paleness.

His face soon catches up with the reds.

_Stupid._

Checking his oversized raincoat is well buttoned up, he stands up and starts to zig-zag his way down the long crystal corridors, thankful for the scattered little groups of people at eight a.m. In general they appear to be too busy yawning or getting their caffeine fix to even spare a look to the weird man donning a blue raincoat, grey yoga pants and leather boots. He doesn’t slow down his trotting, however, and soon find himself recognising the corners he had to turn around easily, as well as the mechanic stairs and the exit that’d get him closer to the taxi rank.

He’s been to this airport once before, who wouldn’t remember it?

It’s languages he struggled with. Even when he’d study them carefully and read books by native authors the moment he’d use them he couldn’t get past the feeling he were forcing out his best lyrics when, in reality, he was stammering trying to order a hamburger. Miles idolatrises him much, at any rate, and thinks his rusty Spanish greetings or French little slips of poetry or German singsongs his mother had taught him as a kid were proof of his great genius. Alex prefers to stick to English, but there comes times he has to go the extra mile… without the help of those poor google translators nobody trusts anyway.

So what if they mess up a word for typing too fast? The goal is to be understood, anyway, and though Alex feared he might end up in other city, the journey is fast and the fare not at all expensive and he tips the man generously and receives a warm _Ey, venga, gracias, tío!_

Thanks… _uncle_? He smiles politely and gets off, his mind clearing quickly as steps on the top of a sand dune and looks out to the sea, to the few greying clouds that have started gathering round, threatening to break the cerulean glow the morning has to it. Balancing on one feet he takes a boot off then does the same with the other, happy he forego that lame clothing accessory called _socks_. The sand is warm and actually soft as he pads lightly on it, wanting to be absorbed and covered by the grains that graze his soles ever so gently.

He shuts his eyes and whirls around, feeling his fingertips brush the wind apart and create a vacuum of splendid sounds: the faraway thunder, the swish of the waves crashing, the sand grinding under his lousy steps, Pippa mewling in the background, his own languid heartbeat and, by contrast, the most precious sweet rhythm inside, a hurried _thumpthumthumpthump_ he felt captivated by as it drowns the others out and he descends, safe, the wind turning him around then dropping him, the fall sweet and gentle, as he dips in that ever mesmerising black that turns down no-one into its oblivion, shy or willing, tiptoeing gracefully or barging in.

Black. Sweet like molasses, loving like dilated pupils, cool as onyxes.

Black all around and welcoming.

 

 

X

It is midday when he comes around, though the overcast sky might make him suppose otherwise. The dash to the beach house has left him groggy and as he walks in he notices he’s shuddering, and not just damp but soaking wet. Growling, he flings his clothes off right there at the entrance hall, congratulating his split-second decision to take a raincoat rather than a very fine trench coat he’d been gifted at a photoshoot.  He eyes his empty wrist then checks the wall clock on his right.

_Twelve o’ eight._ That meant…a three hour nap. Kind of extreme, especially considering he’d actually slept last night, feelings numbed and at bay and…he’s not very fond of it. If there’s something at all to be learnt from last night he reckons that is, a self-validation to his adult self. It’s not getting laid he’s after at this stage in life, that’s just a means, maybe one of his favourites, to let his feelings pour out and forward. With Miles, it feels like even the fleeting of kisses hold meaning if filled with sincere emotion, take it away and there’s little to be thrilled about. Maybe he’s just a glutton for emotions and Miles calling him a whore wasn’t that far-off. How petty it’d sound, though, a sensitive whore.

Leaving a clear trail of water and heavy, gel-filled drops on the ceramic tiles and Indian rugs, he rushes to the bathroom and takes a hot shower, most likely ensuring cold at the sudden change of temperatures but, what’s more, the intensity of his feelings to come back and subdue him if deemed necessary. It would give him all the more energy to sing heartily and, first, to call Josh and talk him into accepting to let him use their studio, something that will necessarily require a lot of sucking-up and taking of patronising advice he hardly could endure while not in a sweet mood.

And yet, only barely so.

 

 

X 

“No.”

"No?" Alex echoes, incredulous.

"What? Still gotta get over the shock we are in the same city! Don't think for a second I don't know you've been avoiding me. I almost feel bullied, darlz."

Alex rolls his eyes but keeps it nonetheless civil, "I'm on holidays with Miles…couples, yanno, do that kind of thing. Bein’ together comes first to banterin’ with yer lads at times."

“Ooh. Does it now? It seems to me you’re always sneaking in with Zackery!” He mocks in a raising voice, then chuckles. “Miles is a fucking saint, I tell you that. No offence but I’d have fucking dumped your cheating ass long long ago.”

“Listen, I dunno what you talk with Miles but this is none of yer business, Joshua. I’m happy the way things are, Zackery is just a friend. It’s not like he’s single, either, so that’s that.”

“A _friend_ that pops up _just_ when you need it!” Of course, he’ll never listen to him. It’s Josh, he’s got Dave fuckin’ Grohl on his speed dial. “You have James hiding under your bed now, too? _Come. On._ Takes one to know one, Alex. If cheating was a sport I could have fucking gone to the Olympics, baby. You ain’t fooling me.”

Alex arches an eyebrow and watches the grimy tiles, making a mental note to do some cleaning up. With a wince, he pictures himself wearing the black anklets he’d put aside earlier and sits up on the couch. “You _do_ realise you don’t make any sense judging me then.”

“How can I not?! My so-called girlfriends knew it all along, Alex. They shopped away with my cards and I got some pro sex with the prettiest things. I never said I loved them.” He tsks. “Go ahead, spot the difference smartass.”

“Alright, enof! Fink what you want Joshua, sneer at me. It’s like talkin’ to a twelve-year old that’s too ‘ung up on pornography to function, wasting me breath. I love Miles, yeh, but it’s not you I have to show it to.”

Stilling, he ruffles the hair behind his ear and feels at a loss for words. He’s stood up, apparently, and began pacing back and forth. “So, back to the studio thing… what are your hours? I could come in early an’ be gone by midday if you record in the afternoon.”

“You, Alex, have way too much attitude for a 5’9 _lad_. Could get you in trouble someday. It always pays to be sweet and docile when asking for something, I say you try again. And lower that voice, yes? I so can’t stand that strong northern lilt spoiling the cadence to your tone. One would think after all these years you’d get a hang on it already…”

_Crack._ Alex spots a glass with traces of milk left unwashed by the sink .That hadn’t been him. He smiles glumly and walks over to the kitchen.  “Gimme five days. It’s all I’m asking, Joshua. Today fo’ me, tomorrow for you. It pays…pays to have friends in this industry too, innit?”

The comeback is quick, sharp. “Yeah, right! You’d have drowned in that island like so many if I hadn’t pulled your gay ass and got you where the money is, a.k.a America.”

He watches the glass pieces fall apart neatly.

“Five days.”

“Say ‘ _please, Josh’_. And try not to get hard. That would ruin the perfect triangle you’ve got yourself in.”

Alex snaps again. “Just how fucking high are you?!”

“Say. It.”

“Please, Joshua. Fuckin’ lend me that studio for five goddamn days, will ye?”

“That’s a good boy! All foul-mouthed and rude, _ahh_.” Josh cheered, with a ringing tone. He kisses receiver and gives a small snicker. “I pity miles, Alex. Oh, god, I really do, he’s too good for you. Too sweet. Too naïve.”

“Shut the ‘ell up!”

But he had already, the automatic beep tells Alex that much.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this one. I have many chapters written ahead but couldn't bring myself to edit this one, ha. Also, xmas and all the parties happened and...2017 is here, hey. (Happy 2017!) Hopefully you haven't forgotten everything about this story! No? That's good. :)

His mind isn’t cut out for this. It’s only two in the afternoon but the recording room where the monkeys are supposed to be at seems halfway raided already. It’s a small round white wrought iron table what catches his attention, though, with its tiny flowers sculpted along the tapered legs and a stained-glass panel on top of it. He’s not sure how it got there when it should belong on a garden, of course, but it’s very beautiful indeed. Upon closer inspection he notices the glass cracked, under the poker cards and half-empty beer bottles and he winces when he runs his fingers on it, something about the delicacy of the furniture being ruined by such ordinary things bidding him to draw it, and paint. There’s something very mesmerising about stained glass itself but Miles feels he has yet to find one that isn’t cracked or broken or mend together with cheap, pasty white glue.

The monkeys come trampling in at last, Nick tackling Miles from behind and almost making the man double over on the table. “Miles _K_!”

“About time, eh!” Jamie echos.

Matt burps, putting down paper bags on the table and helping Jamie with the cups. “Had to nip out to the Burger King ‘round the corner…huh, Nick, you speakin’? Pain in the ass that’s what you are. Look, he may be hugging you now but an hour ago, oh yeah I’m calling you out mate shut up. I tell you, he was all: ‘let’s go grab a bite, Miles can wait an hour I’m starving!’ But I,” he makes a pause, hand in chest, “the voice of reason, said: ‘ _no_ , let’s buy some burgers to eat here with’im.’ Plane food fooking sucks, yeah? I’m such a good friend, I know.”

Miles couldn’t hold back chuckling at Matt’s usual good spirits as he hugs Nick back briefly then pushes him off when he wouldn’t budge, the others laughing at him openly.

“Word’o advice: you can’t fight Nick’s murderous hugs, eh.” Jamie tears open a paper bag and tosses the carton of chips around messily while Matt diligently makes a pile out of the music sheets that were still scattered about and drops them on the floor. He’s released with a pat and takes a seat, making believe he’s doesn’t still find his brand of banter foreign and too physical.

“If you got out it’s because he’s feeling merciful.”  

“He must ‘ave been a fucking… _ugh_. Al knows the name of those big snakes that wrap ‘emselves around little rabbits and rats…”

“Boas.” Nick winks at Matt and plumps down on the wooden stool in front of Miles, smiling brilliantly at him as he goes on to snatch a burger from the bag Matt’s holding out.

“Kill ‘em off.” Matt concludes, passing the bag to Miles.

Miles takes it, seeing there’s only a burger left. He thanks Matt because he is very hungry indeed, had foregone lunch in favour of finding Alex’s papers and rush into the city, the drive having taken quite a considerable amount of time, as it usually does on weekdays. He asks after the small table because it’s still on its mind - how could it not be? - and Jamie informs him it’d belonged to an old lady who was the previous owner of the two-storey house, which back then had a much bigger garden than it does now. Her grandson had turned the old, traditional house into a recording studio and then sold it off when he changed career path and left for America to become a manager in some big company or other. Miles hums and nods, waiting for the conversation to flow naturally on to more trivial topics so he may turn his head round and look at the table again. As much as he loves music, he’s not surprised to confirm once more that his brain is wired to respond better to visual things and so, covertly, he snaps a couple of photos of it right from the slightly high angle he’s in now, so that the background to the image is that beige wallpaper flaking off it the corner and just a glimpse of the greyish carpet.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“I’d like to paint that then,” Miles bobs his head to the table, Jamie cocking a curious eyebrow while Matt slurps loudly on his straw, incredibly done already with his own lunch.

“The ol’ table again?” The blond insists even as Miles faces them again. “What about it?”

“Dunno.”

“That’s very _Alex_ ,” Nick pouts in imitation, and hands Miles a perfectly open ketchup packet, the same he’d been helplessly trying to pry open with his fingers before his mind reminded him of the table.

“Please don’t get him started on the topic of Alex, Nick, fuck did we talk about?!” Matt whines but is soon cut short.

“He’s really so aesthetically pleasing, though. I’d like to learn more about _just_ how symmetric his face is, oi, open your mind to new knowledge. Art broadens the mind.”

James chimes in, crumbs spilling out as he gobbles down lukewarm bread. Messing with Matt when he’s impatient is too great a treat to not to. “That’s travelling, I think, eh?”

“And what do you know?” Nick plays on, shaking his head and popping the lid off his cup to actually sip from it. He looks down at the blond through swigs, a display of his cool. “Stupid, James, like all the blondes.”

“Can’t fight genetics, I guess.”

“Goddamnit you’re kids. Miles…”

He looks at the man sitting back in his chair and eating quietly, like a domestic animal studying wild ones attentively. When would those two get Miles is peculiar without Alex around to compensate for his constrained ways or slightly asocial attitudes? “Miles, not you too, come on. Listen, we need to get to checking how to fix Alex musings with our recorded bits. We’ve got forty five minutes so far, it’s ten songs, plus the Japan bonus track. So…”

“So is Alex symmetric all over? I think that’s quite _the_ question.” Nick puts on a voice, determined to keep the banter going. “Like, _all_ over?”

“Ever brought to auction a portrait of him _au naturel_ , eh?”

“Balls out, dick hanging…”

“Miles! Listen to me, please.”

Miles offers a general _yeah, yeah_ and munches on his burger, picking a few chips and glancing around at Alex’s guitars, his amps, his power pedals. All of which have been used by him for a year or ten, covered with scratches his not-quite-nails made, and dents, and with strings he’d tuned time and time again, probably perching quietly on an amp and balancing the tuner on his thighs as he played note after note and his fingers turned the knobs around slowly, as the lost cause of a perfectionist he is. He could see his ghost reflection, too, that concentrated expression he has on when going over what he’d written and scratching things out, and rewriting others, then scratching some more and muttering out little _‘fook!’s_. Chocolate skeins of hair falling over chocolate eyes that were probably closed as he played and got lost in the sounds, his voice getting gruff after recording some songs, the solution to which was demanding cigarette breaks, and honey-filled hard candy, as if smoke and sugar could do better than some fresh water.

And that image summons up a thought…he’s never seen Alex drink or order tea while in a studio, maybe a mite worried it would be taking the gay too overboard. Then the image of Alex’s shell-shaped ivory cup shoots through his brain and he sees it, the pristine little thing there on the white table, among the beers and the poker cards, his scarf loosely hanging off the chair he was sitting in, his bare feet grazing the carpeted floor as he stretched on the fluffy settee and tried to pluck some inspiration from random chords. His black glasses hanging off the mic stand, where they would be forgotten for a week or so until the odd ray of sun actually reached London and he’d remember about them. That hearty laugh when someone would pull him out of his daydreams with a naughty joke and, at last, he’d slowly reconnect with reality.

Alex, in every corner, in every detail. It’s his place, his things, his habits, heck it is his songs and notes. Miles can’t help but feel both incredibly out of place and in fear his being there would mar it all one way or another. There is a big part of Alex here, in a way it felt like a treasure he’s happy to be trusted to look after but wants not for him. He doesn’t want Alex ever giving up this, couldn’t believe he’d do so with such ease.

Only maybe it was a hard decision for him to make, too. Sure, he might be keen on the idea of a family and it’s natural now it’d be his priority but would it always be? Alex is far from thoughtless, he most likely has a plan to keep on making music on his own, or with Zack, still his conscience could hardly be calm if he ends up stranding the monkeys overnight. Even if leaving Miles to replace him. Keeping in line with this reasoning, Miles figures that should have been his strategy, he should have made it uber-clear to Alex he might record a few things but that he could in no way actually be part of a band. As it is, Alex might have taken his love-hate relationship with the art world and his acceptance of this as the redeeming signal that Miles could take up after him.

Fingers snapping came into vision and Miles whips his head back in surprise. “Ah, hi there again Miles.”

“What?!”

“ _What what the what what_? Eh, that’s very Alex as well.” Jamie snickers and squeezes Miles’ shoulder. Looking down the brunet realises the table is once more clean (or rather, free of food) and Matt is drumming his fingers on the edge of it. Miles bends down to fetch his bag and the neat stack of sheets carefully sorted into plastic sleeves, one per song.

“He’s got twenty odd things,” Miles spreads them out as if to form a fan and the boys each take one.

“Oh my,” Nick flicks through s couple and smiles, all dimples and wide eyes. “Every time.”

“What?” Miles questions.

“We have to record eight songs, Alex comes up with forty bloody eight and they’re twenty minutes long, what a lad. And what’s he doing now, Miles? Prolly happily sunbathing his round ass. Gotta be m’hero.”

Or running away, Miles’ leery mind quietly admonishes

 

X

 

“See? Onions. I’m just peeling onions. No milk or meat or anything yer lit’l stomach might be interested in.”

Pippa angles up her rhomboid face, sniffing the air and meowing in a bit of a chant. She is sat on a high stool Alex had much kindly moved from under the breakfast bar so she could climb up and watch him cook in all her avid curious ways, note: not balance on the thing as if she were about to pounce on the opposite counter, where Alex is working, then quickly sitting up and shooting big innocent eyes the moment he faces her again.

“When I do take out the meat…” Alex shakes his head animatedly and smiles at the purring ball of champagne fur, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Maybe if you behave till then…I must ‘ave missed like ten steps already, ‘ope yer happy Pips!” He eyes the control remote in the back pocket of his joggings and pictures it out, aiming at the little tv where wise Nigel Slaters is happily looking into the oven and congratulating himself for using leftover food in such a cunning way. It starts to rewind slowly and Alex watches the man take the lovely things out and undo them one by one.

“He is the hipsterest of them all don’t you think?” Alex side-glances at Pippa, who’s already too occupied licking her back paws clean. He wipes his slightly damp forehead with a roll of his shirt’s hemline his hands bring up before knotting his rebellious curls into some type of low hanging bun. “I’m still waiting for the day the BBC will deign to give the poor man some fresh ingredients. I like that he doesn’t show off, though. And that he actually eats what he cooks.” Alex concedes with a slight tilt of his head, which still feels much too heavy even after a second nap. “Just about…there.” He squints. ”I’m chopping things, okay, so…now what?”

As expected, the moment Alex cuts open the pack of minced beef Pippa jumps off her stool. It still surprises Alex, however, since he was genuinely concentrated on listening to Nigel’s instructions and silly remarks so much he loses his hold on the remote at the sudden sound of a loud thump. Directing his gaze downwards he sees Pippa missed the mark by a few centimetres and so landed on the ground like a piece of dough. A very alive piece of dough that has the cheek to swat the remote away from Alex before she starts curling herself around his legs, nails scratching shyly at the worn denim. Alex wills the remote up and Nigel starts talking again but his focus is well gone what with Pippa crying and bumping her head harder against his feet. He’s done with his first pasty when he feels some little licks on his bare ankle and he squirms, wondering if cats would attack people when hungry. Back in his foster home cats usually came into the playground and he’d watch them, through the window in his room, but some kids actually played with them, and he thinks he recalls a story about kittens biting one of them when they lay down on the grass to rest?

No, that’s too extreme surely.

“Okay, okay. Just let me cook it. _Agh_ …Nigel fuck, shush…pause!” The remote drops again and Pippa actually startles, prancing away a few steps then sitting and watching Alex flick his head. He tele-opens counter after counter until a grill pan came into vision and he flies it to the stove, which he quickly lights and throws some funny-shaped burgers on. “I know you’re very clean but…I don’t want to get toxo, yanno. Better safe than sorry.” Pippa meows on and Alex resumes his ‘ _gently crimp of the edges’._

Then adds some more egg wash to ‘ _give his pasties a golden glaze, too’._

  
X  


“Hmm that was _good_.” Alex sucks on his fingers one by one. “Those Cornwall sailors were onto something, huh?”

“Meeeow. Meow!”

“You liked your lil meat balls?”

“Meow!”

“Meaooow? Hm? You’re so peaceful to watch. Yeh you’re such a beauty, heck… even when sitting on a plate, yeah you are, Pips. Graceful as fook.” Alex pats the cat’s head and yawns, not at all feeling like doing the washing up, manually or otherwise.

Resting his head on the crook of his elbow, he stares off at the light coffee stripes up Pippa’s dainty legs and thinks back to Miles and his sure trace when painting, those beautiful long-fingered hands that look ever so precious when playing guitar or the piano, especially when he forgets about his rings and keeps them on. One day Alex would put his own there and so spend even a more embarrassing amount of time thinking about, dreaming of and watching those hands.

Blinking away the daydream produce of his slushy sentimentality, he straightens up on his seat and notices something pulling at his makeshift bun. It’s Pippa, draping on his shoulder and pawing at the thing. Alex laughs and carefully drops her down on the floor, suggesting going to catch some sleep. He ends up picturing the dirty dishes, bowls, cutlery and dishcloths all in the sink, promising to deal with them first thing tomorrow.

Dragging himself up the stairs his mind bounces back to Miles again, and he enters the bedroom with a slightly sped up pulse that gives him a rush of energy to take out his beef-smelly clothes and pay a quick trip to the bathroom to shower, brush his teeth and use some nice, fresh aloe on his mostly taut skin. He slathers each stretch mark twice, waiting for the first layer to absorb then applying the other right away.

At nine, he’s more than ready to hit the mattress and go to sleep but he resists the urge and instead slides in smoothly under blissfully cool silk sheets, trying his best to ignore the pang in his chest at the feeling of emptiness of being alone somewhere Miles’ traces were still around.

From his ridiculously harsh deodorant spray to much of his clothes in the dresser and his tissues and mints on the bed table, his lot of paintbrushes, his flip flops and swim trunks strewn carelessly on a wooden chair next to the window.  Flipping channels on the telly he finds a Breaking Bad rerun but it’s already started and in less than half-an-hour, over. That’s his cue to get rid of the thicker pillow under his head and rest on the other, squinting only to will the volume down but not much. An action movie or series seems to be on next, but that’s just a guess. He isn’t interested in knowing, he just likes the background sound. The voices keep him company and the shootings and explosions help his mind defocus and start losing long strings of thoughts as he drifts off, the echo of the bullets being fired but fleeting milestones of his diminishing conscience.

 

X

He left the room.

At some point well past midnight he finds himself sleepwalking into the living room and gently moving Pippa off to a mat nearby so he could lie on the couch. He spreads his lucky blanket as best as he could in between yawns and tries to ignore the chilly feel of the leather on his bare back and legs save for that warm spot on the back of his thighs where Pippa had been. She would sure clamber onto his lap soon but Alex couldn’t bring himself to mind. The brutal temperature drop and not very firm cushions he can take. It almost seems as his nasal passageways clear at the lack of hints of Miles’ things and he can breathe again.

That’s until a kick makes him wince and roll onto his side, where he catches a glimpse of a sketchbook of Miles’ snug inconspicuously in the crack where cushions meet armrest. Alex recognises at once that cover with a camouflage pattern of greens, knows the full-length story about Miles’ obsession with that colour, yet he refrains from picking it up. He winces, though, as the baby kicks on inside him and his breath comes in short bursts again, because that makes his smelling sharpen and his mind get tangled in cyclical thinking yet again.

 

X  


He wakes up to sun, Pippa tangled around his sandy feet, and a banging sound coming from the door. The raincoat he’d discarded is still there and he picks it up, puts it on and shudders at the damp feeling it brings on his skin. Standing behind the door he cracks it open only enough to stick his face through, feeling not at all like using magic, or being social.

Usually enough, however, the universe has other plans.

“Zackery.”

“Heyyy…” The very awake blond leans forward in that _too close for comfort_ way and, perhaps, in a genius moment, he sees how both the picture and that stupid caption got to Miles. “ _Uh-oh_ , someone’s had a long night. But dude! You look legit fucked over. You alright, Al?”

That sentence, of course, comes from a man who’d mastered the art of looking fresh while being purposefully unkempt. Alex is never sure what does it, if his only ever a few centimetres long beard or his expensive but lightweight leather jackets, his denim espadrilles or his floral siphon shirts but the result is virtually the same. Today is no exception and though the leather jacket is missing his preferred shoes are right in place along with white skinny jeans and a buttoned up indigo shirt that kept billowing in the breeze from such a loose fit. He looks ironically impeccable and cool, the golden sunglasses being the cherry on top.

“Yeh, yeh. What are you doing here, Zack? ‘s Monday.” Alex says, his face twisting a fraction. “I were sleeping.”

“Oh really?” Zack nods along, raising an equally ironic eyebrow. “Zoe…she’s having a ladies’ day, going to the hairdressers and the solarium shit. I don’t know why but she thinks she’s too pale for the beach. Girls, dude, they’re a fucking wild card! Ya have no idea.” He shakes his head, and reaches for his jean’s back pocket. He gets his phone out and is soon checking something on screen with a scorn, glasses momentarily held up. “No messages, _ah_.” He taps a button and puts the device away in his tighter-than-tight jeans. ”Anyway, long story short I wanted to see if y’all were up to something? Since you didn’t call Sunday or anything?”

Alex leans his rumbling belly more heavily on the door. “Um.”

“Are you going to let me in, or?” Zack made a pointing gesture with his fingers, signalling the inside of the house and himself.

“I don’t feel very social, yanno.” Alex cuts in, dry, imagining what Miles would think of the situation. This isn’t just meeting up with Zack, this was Zack in their temporary house, while he’s just woken up and is only in his underwear beneath the airy raincoat, sweaty as hell but sleepy and in very serious need of romantic attention. Mentally, he scolds himself for not having worked up the nerve to call Miles last night, now all the pent-up tension would just increase throughout the day. It rarely fade. It’s not so much naïve as stupid to think it would with just some hours sleep.

“Mmm unlikely. You might be having mixed-up feelings, Al, that’s fine. But you really want to be around people. You’ll get weird nervous if you ain’t.”

“No that’s not-”

“True? You wish, dude …instincts are instincts. And friends usually know better what we need than we do,” Zack bobs his head to the side, mocking how Alex is squeezing his face in through the ajar door… and who can ignore Zack’s hysterical imitations?  Soon the brunet is looking down in defeat, trying to hide the smile that has broken through his bored pout, even while knowing Zack could tell just what he is doing. He feels his grip on the door handle slide too, without meaning to. “Even more so when that friend is kind of a fellow sorcerer with far more experience in being around people in your state. I’d say you should listen.” He brings up Alex chin in-between the knuckles of his index and middle finger, nodding to make sure Alex gets the message. A flash of helpless fear shoots past his eyes before he’s told to _‘fuckin’ go find someone else t’bother’_.

The younger were, the moodier they got but there had to be some connection, as his father always said, because they were too the ones with a higher mortality rate during the pregnancy and while going through the birth process. He’d written Alex off that list because he was thirty, a grown-up and very healthy, albeit playful, man. Huffing, Alex flips his hair off his face and Zack blinks back to feel a buzz of energy come out of Alex’s skin. He quickly reaches to skim his fingers over the vibrant skin, an amused cackle cutting through warm air when he realises what it is and Alex slaps his arm away “Where’s Miles, anyway?”

“Zackery!”

“That’s a first. Using magic to give yourself lovebites, aw. You _are_ cute.”

Alex stomps his feet, a coping reflex, “Didn’t!”

“I’m not judging.”

Zack takes advantage of Alex stepping back and pushes the door open, walking in as if he had a zillion times before, not even looking around once on his way to the kitchen.

“C’mon. I’ll make you breakfast and we can chat.” He pats Alex’s back over the dirty raincoat and makes a face. “But first change, yeah?”

 

X

“It says D Miles, not F-sharp.”

“D, yes…he’s being ironic, James. I’m sure you know how obnoxious Alex’s jokes can get. Play it with me and you’ll see how awful it sounds. He clearly meant F#.”

It did sound weird, everyone soon assents, and Nick points out Alex’s in-pencil handwritten Ds next to the bits of lyrics he’d scribbled over the pentagram so that it could alternatively read: _gives me_ _the joule effect when Ds abound, trapped in cinematic twirls of an once-upon a D, like sagittate leaves flying all over my D_ and a few more Nick coins pure art and even tries to talk Miles into convincing Alex to keep one at least, claiming ‘heels’, ‘breeze’ and ‘skin’ could never hold a candle to the Ds.

“Or sing it live. I want to see him scream: and _if you’ve hit peak, take those prefab Ds and trot away girl, quick. With the steam, and your charcoal boots on the white of a bluebell tip. It’s a trick. The slippery fall and the taste afterwards, is it a crime if the thief steals your words when you don’t’ want them no more?_ And, in brackets: _‘I do me sensual low voice, Matt goes high key to moan the back vocals. 10/10.’_  “Put the original ‘bouquets’ in there and he’s talking about a kiss. Clever bugger.”

“Eh, but it’s always blowjobs, innit?”

“He’s got a knack for making sex sound…refined. Women, well most, fall hard for that flowery language even when the hidden message ends up being ‘I’ll fuck your sister if you leave me, just sayin’.” Nick shrugs and proceeds to take a healthy sip of his second beer. “And I say women because he still sticks to the hers and she’s.”

“He sees it like that, too, though.” Miles comments, lost in thought about how effortlessly Alex often describes his paintings in a sexual but not vulgar light. It is all in his language, he agrees with Nick, the underlying meaning could be very base but his casual lobbing of obscure adjectives or slightly abstract concepts paired with that enticing purr could still get him worked up in a breath. So of course girls would lose their minds a bit over it…him.

There’s a murmur of responses but all Miles feels is the vibrating of his phone in the pocket of his shirt right against his heart and, now, hard nipples. Fishing the thing out, he slides his thumb across the screen and sees it’s only a message from Josh. He taps on it hoping it’s not more het porn gifs or Kamasutra tips, seeing as Josh had gotten into the habit of sending Miles those when drunk or bored, hard-set on checking and rechecking Miles found none of it even slightly arousing. Not that he’d ever believe him anyhow.

This time it was a picture, yes.

“Who is it?” Matt sings in a knowing voice.

Rim resting on lips for a second, Nick follows. “Christ that’s a not a good face, what is it?”

A photo. A photo of Alex’s profile as he sits on a high chair and leans into the microphone to sing. His feet and legs are curling around one of the wooden legs as he often does when he’s nervous or getting worked up. That wouldn’t exactly mean anything if it weren’t for Zack’s looming presence, right by his side, body partly hidden by Alex’s but that conceited smile splitting his face as he stares down at Alex, at where he’s presumably sneaking a hand down the light-blue towel that drapes from his boyfriend’s shoulders. Miles zooms in to see Zack’s flexed elbow, his arm and then rayon, bluer, probably wet, where his hand should have been. For his part, Alex has his head tilted the camera’s way not Zack’s, so that Miles could see that pout pressed against the microphone and, through layers of hair that looked too dense to be dry, tightly shut eyes.

Going back, he sees Josh’s following texts.

“Is it Alex, eh? Everything okay?”

_> recording going good_   
_> all laughs and good vibes_   
_> ;) _

_> Why u there?_

“Miles? You’re talking to him, eh?”

“Jamie, jeez, give ‘em some privacy! Let’s go over this one, Nick! Give it back!”

_> someone has to help the singers record the vocals kandy kane… _  
a professional  
why did alex bring zack along now that’s a good question! ! !

_> He said anything?_

_> ohh careful there!! it’s not my business is it now? _  
>(tho i’d rather have ur boy alone any day)  
> these two are the definition of annoying together… 

_‘Then why text me?’_ Miles writes then promptly erases. Josh doesn’t give the impression of being fond of Zack either and he’s being his friend sending him what he saw. It’s his conceited attitude Miles has a hard time getting used to even when aware it’s all a mask. Talking to him in person is a very different experience. He can listen and be serious if he wants to, he’s also painfully observant and usually knows people more than they think he does, something that paired with his killer smiles and height made young girls swoon by the mile.

“It’s nothing, just Arielle. I might have to come by, help her with some bureaucratic stuff the cultural property laws demand …yeah.” He lies, hoping his face gets the memo.  “I think I’ll go for a smoke, five-min cigarette break anyone?”

“Great, you read my mind.” Nick tosses the beer bottle into a trash bin.  “I’ll go get some kit kats!”

“Throw me a Corona.. Nick, Nick!…you fuckin’…fuckin’… _snake._ ” Matt lands a fist on the table.

“ _Booh-oa”_ Nick points back at Matt on his way out past the fridge by the door, smirk radiant.

“I’ll go wif ye.”

“Don’t.” Miles waves what he thinks is a pleasantry off, makes sure the acoustic guitar is safe in Alex’s case then stands up. “I know you don’t smoke.”

“Ehhh. None of us three do, as a habit. If the situation calls for it, then, eh, some smoke won’t kill ya.”

It’s silent on the way up the fire stairs to the second floor, to that balcony-like construction that has probably more use as a hanging spot for those seeking smoke than those running away from it. Once there, Miles is quick to put some distance between the blond and him as he leans on a brick wall and looks away to sad, cloudy London at mid-week. He lits up a cigarette, teeth biting down on the filter as if it were gum. A scale of greys, he wants to add to that, to puff away in dense strings of air all that colourfulness he’d got from that pic, all the fresh envisions of the things Alex could be up to once he leaves the studio and is presented with sun, freedom and breezy, cool, Zack.

“Eh… Miles?” Jamie nudges at his ribs with the traces of a smirk playing on the corner of his lips. “Can I scrounge a cig from ye?”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry.” Miles hands over what actually used to be Alex’s psychedelic lighter and upends the pack, tapping it with his fingers so that one would fall on Jamie’s waiting hand.

“Dunhill, eh! Can’t say I’m surprised. Yer posher than posh for a Scouser.”

Miles shrugs, not quite able to deny his consistent taste for deluxe items. “Hmm.”

Thankfully, Jamie beats him to fill the silence. Pointing down to a shop opposite mid-street he asks, “Did Alex ever tell you about ‘the can incident’?”

“Don’t think so, no.” Miles takes a long puff, letting the smoke settle deep and well in his lungs as Jamie drones on about young Alex accidentally kicking a can at the bottom of a stack then going over to the shop’s owner to blame the disaster on a child that was hanging around alone, too.

“He was very convincing about it. Imagine Alex with pretty much the same vocabulary as now but barely five feet and with a squawky voice. And twelve. Anyway, the lady was very amused by it all as was the other kid as Alex accused him and tried to get the attention off him. They both ended up helping the woman arrange the cans properly again and the kid even tried his luck at gettin’ a word out from a mute, don’t-know-ye Alex.”

In Miles’ head Alex was flustered right to the tip of his toe and the other kid was stuck with a cocky smile, as if knowing that liar was maybe not your average liar. Miles holds on to the railing and chances a look down, body bending freely forward without Alex to coddle him. “Okay, I can smell a twist coming.”

“Aye. It turns out, two-weeks later or so, we find out this other kid was one of the lady’s sons! And wait!” Jamie takes a shy puff and, Miles thinks, keeps back cough. “At the next school dance he approached Alex and confessed, very bravely I migh’ add, having had a giant crush on him for a while. So, yeh…tha’ explained the lady’s good spirits and the kid keeping his cool as Alex went on bashing him. Matt ‘n me felt like detectives solving a case, then cupids matching the two. They went out for a year and a half, made a popular couple then the kid moved back to America and broke young Al’s heart. It was his first boyfriend. Hell, he was the first of us to date and kiss and… not that bad, eh!”

“He was American you said?”

“Could be. His mother was but I don’t remember if it was him or his older brothers that were born in Boston. Anyway, they were very blonde, not like me, mo’ like platinum blonde, and they had bright blue eyes, cool layered haircuts and skateboards…They stood out from the majority of northerners, I can tell ye tha’. Many girls in Alex’s grade started pulling pranks on him as a revenge for ‘making their crush gay’.”

“He’s told me something about those pranks.” Drunk slips, as it is the norm with him. Sober Alex doesn’t talk much about his past unless pressed to and Miles rarely does. He gleans, at least, something from the pictures and videos and the monkeys love to dig out and tell him stories about. “Thought it was for coming out. I always found it weird it was girls and not boys, though.”

“Nah, it was the little girls. They were mad jealous.”

“Oh.”

Miles flickers the ash down into the wind and watches it being blown away. Jamie is soon introducing him to some sound techs that had come out as well, one asking him for a lighter because he’d forgotten his. Miles obliges and forces a smile, chatting on about some problems with booking venues in England, some restrictions he thinks he heard Alex mention not too long ago. He’s given goodwill messages to send to Alex before they leave through the emergency exit door and Miles turns to go back down, thinking they had well exceeded the five minutes mark.

“Wait.” James tugs at his jacket, cigarette somehow still burning in his hand. _Has he only taken one puff?_

“Ehhh, you’ve got the definite ticket yet? You know, I could drive you t’ the airport and hang around with you till it’s boarding time. Migh’ help taking yer mind off the flyin’ alone thing?”

Miles scowls on pure reflex, not really appreciating the sudden move of the blond’s hand. “What…ticket?”

“Eh, what ticket?!” He mocks, but his ruddy face pales slightly. “The boarding passes, whatever. I know it sucks, travellin’ by plane. I don’t trust them either but…it’s not like you have any other choice, eh? That shit’s quick. Ehhh. And we live in an island, yeh?”

“I haven’t got anything.” Miles clarifies, wishing this conversation could be over straight away on the grounds of obviousness.  “If it’s tickets back to Spain you mean…I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”

“What?! Alex said you ‘ave got the ticket already, only needed to set up a specific date?”

“He said that?” Miles steps on the cigarette butt he’s dropped. “Wait, how-”

“You don’t know?”

 “You’ve been speaking to him, right?” _As if!_

_What’d be the use in that?_

 He wants you to be there to keep on doin’ whatever it is yer up to in Spain. As long as it isn’t sellin’ drugs, eh…it isn’t, is it?”

“No… _no_. “ Miles reflects briefly on the bizarre idea, why would they? How did Jamie even reach that conclusion? Or did he just say the first thing that came to mind? “Of course not, James!”

“So you ‘ave no reason not to go back! Work can wait. Take the tickets out today, talk to him, eh? Loneliness doesn’t suit him well.”

 “He’s not ‘lonely’,” the brunet scoffs.

“You didn’t even call him Miles! Jeez, just…get your ass there. You can’t just leave him alone like tha’, ye know Alex doesn’t handle well being alone for too long.”

Does he need to spell it out too, his stupid name? “He’s not alone, Jamie, if that’s what concerns you.”

“It concerns me he’s not with _you_ , or _us_. We’re his family. Ten years miles, ehhhhh, whatever little fight you had I think you can push it aside and call him. Tell him yer flying back on Monday, as we’d all arranged then you can discuss face-to-face like grown-ups, eh?”

“But-”

_You’re not listening James. You don’t know._

_There’s things far beyond our comprehending he does, they both do. There’re like magnets now it’s all out in the open._

“You will, okay? Miles, please…” He grabs him by his sides, shakes him lightly. “You can’t do this to someone like Alex. You don’t just _leave_ him.”

**_He_ ** _, James, doesn’t want me._

“You mind?” Miles looks down at the hands still holding him. “You’re right. I have to go. Buy the ticket and be done with it.”

_A round-trip ticket,  to spend a different on-planes, in-airports, through-customs fun day ._

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Characters demand and writers provide. Please don't quote me on that but this chapter is basically made of my tears because I couldn't say 'no' to their little video call. Just think... can they see each other fully? Smell? Touch? Move around much? So, yes, it was a bit of a challenge to keep things interesting in-between all the ~ dialogue ~ but hopefully I struck a balance. :)

 

 

 

X

 

_Saturday 29th_

Alex had listened to his phone vibrating some minutes before, when he was leaving the room to feed Pippa and make himself a soup or something quick and easy. He could have reached for it, but it vibrated only once, like those game notifications or news alerts he cares little about do. Now that he's back under the warm cotton sheets, covers and bedspreads, he partly regrets his lethargy seeing it's _Miles_ , and not with a hackneyed goodnight wish or a sentence-long report on how his day went.

_Mi ♥ - 9.20 p.m_

_R u alone?_

After staring at the seven lone little letters for a while Alex types out a quick _Yes, why?,_ hoping Miles hadn't gone to sleep but acknowledging, too, that he is in no state to be sexy or endearing if it's phone sex his boyfriend is after. Maybe sexting, if he made an effort, but just for Miles. Getting anywhere near horny sounds suicidal to him in this newfangled state of self, _hot_ self. He's been having an on and off temperature since Wednesday, the only time using a cold handkerchief on his nape and forehead had aided him at all, and granted him some sleep. It'd got steadily worse with the following equally stifling days and his reluctance to leave bed even when his eyes would not close. Now there are sore ribs and a stiff back to worry about, aside from a stomach that seems to have been wired upside down overnight and could not keep a meal in for more than a couple of hours, something that wouldn't have been that much of a problem with his ill-low appetite, but the idea of his baby being deprived of nutrients because of him has him shovelling down spoonful after spoonful of vegetable soups, fruits and the modern-day ambrosia: Jell-O. Jell-O is easy to prepare, eat and very, very gentle on his upset stomach, the one to not fail him and spurt back out (unexpectedly).

As by his wish, Miles knows not a thing about this. What could he do but worry, anyway? On Wednesday, Alex had answered back in that terse fashion that he was feeling a bit shit, which was true, if only partly. Miles got back to him the next day, assuming he was alluding to the ever present pre-recording nerves:

_You'll do good. the mix sounds great already xx_

It's leagues better than pity.

He may itch at the dearth of _Al'_ s or pet names in his boyfriend's speech when talking to him alone, yes, but it's pity he cannot handle. No matter if implied or direct, well-intended or condescending. It's the very same reason he'd kicked out Zack on the spot on Wednesday night. The man had come around to see if everything was _dandy,_ with those inquisitive eyes and smile that soon turned forced, as if he'd given away his state with the seconds it took him to say ' _yeh, now fuck off'_ and slam the door shut right on his face. Half an hour later he was forced to pick up a fierce hot wind when, in the process of looking around to give Pippa some meat leftovers, he peeked out of the living room windows and spotted her obediently sat facing a blond man that stroked her while lying sprawled on the wooden-porch steps - still in _his_ propriety...and playing with _his_ cat!

"Zack, I bloody mean it, I..."

" ** _I_** \- "  


_He wasn't five, bloody and crying under twisted steel, distressed at his beheaded stuffed dragon or his numb arms._

_Afraid, because you're hanging from the roof, suspended in the many harness straps of the car seat you'd been tucked in, and there's shadows gaining on your field of vision, there's silence and glass, harmless, with its pentagonal edges, getting red splotches as the blood falls, that unrelenting tap, tap, tap, and it scares you because you've never seen it come out of you or anyone, never been surrounded by that stillness and cold that makes you think you're trapped when everyone's been let free, that makes your face get stickier and harden . Maybe you've been forgotten; maybe it's just a game, yes. Like those puzzles you are always told you're so good at. You feel your chest rattle and focus on putting together the side window you were looking out from, before it smashed and let that bough come in to settle where you were. You move the pieces with your mind but it's imperfect, there's red getting into your eyes and you feel sleepy, light but shivering, you're cold to the bone, never more helpless in hands of the numbing dark that tries to take you away, too._  
  


The fear of Alex blowing away his place, the blond said the next day, was what did it. Still he came on Thursday, to receive the same treatment, and back on Friday when Alex struck a deal to let him in on the condition he be left alone the weekend. The truth is, however, he'd have kicked out Zack all the same on Friday if he could have. The man checked on him a lot once inside, and he dodged questions and approaches to the best of his abilities, all too worried about whatever the fever really could mean. Is the baby attacking him? Could they be sick and so stealing his powers? Is his body fighting the baby? Zack left with the impression he was extremely moody and only slightly feverish, which he said was _'nothing out of the ordinary'_ with a pointedly relieved sigh.

Alex was just willing it down.

_Mi ♥ -9.29 p.m_

_'I need to see u. Go on skype?'_

Alex curls up into a ball the most he can, his lower back feeling as if it were about to burst from all the tension. He's wanted to see Miles since Monday afternoon but he's been also too deep under the inhibiting effect of their very recent face-to-face interactions, and with each new day it hasn't really worn off as much as been overshadowed by the illness symptoms.

_You – 9.33 p.m_

_"Dunno. Looking like shit rn."_

_Mi ♥ - 9.34 p.m_

_'I taught u how 2 use it'_  
'It's the last time'  
'We met on a sat 4 the first time, remember?'  
'@ some concert'

_You -9.37 p.m_

_'At The Vines' concert!'  
' ! '_

_Mi ♥ - 9.37 p.m_

_'yeah'_

_You – 9.40 p.m_

_'Last time what tho?'_

_Mi ♥ – 9.42 p.m_

_'2 skype on a sat. Tomorrow it'll be all done with, no?._

_You – 9.48 p.m_

_'If you're ever so keen, Mi... I'll take a bath and be back at ye.'_

_You- 9.53 p.m_

_O oo Oo O oO oo O ooo OOOo o O o oOo O_

_You- 9.55 p.m_

_Share some with me?_

_Mi ♥ - 9.55 p.m_

_What?_

_You- 10.10 p.m_

_Bubbles!  
Lookit, there's more! __O oO O o Oooo OO o O ooo_  
  
Mi ♥ - 10.10 p.m

_ok  
Call me when ur done_

X

  
Twenty minutes go by and Alex is still in the same position, all too feverish to actually get to the bathroom and make himself presentable but also of two minds about whether this was actually a good chance to make a statement and have the man take his turn at feeling some sour, upfront rejection when you least expect it.

_And so we'd accomplish nothing._

Elbowing his fussing aside, he taps on the little letters to write 'OK. _I'm doing it.'_ before putting his phone back into his joggers' pocket and reaching under the pillow for his laptop. He flips the slim thing open as if to set it on his lap but soon remembers that wouldn't be possible so he lays it down by him, rolling on his side then and using a hand to prop his head up lest he's any chance to talk himself out of it or fall asleep instead. Biting an annoyingly strong nail, he checks it's connected to The Wi-Fi and with a deep breath clicks on that light-blue icon with a big 'S'.

_I bet he did it fo' me so I wouldn't miss it. Ha, I'm not that hopeless!_

After slowly typing in his e-mail and password he hears a bubbly sound, and there he is, logged in The Skype, on the first try! His eyes glow with the reflection of the picture of him Miles has picked, one he's in front of what appears to be a mixing board, head turned around and eyes staring right into the camera with a steely, murderous glint to them. It has to be from 2009, by the looks of his hair, and he clicks on it curiously, thinking it such an awful photo even when made bigger. Nail at last broken and spit out, he goes on to nibble the tip of his finger instead while his gaze flits left and finds _~Miles Kane_ ~ on top of his mostly offline contacts. He clicks on it, then again off to the right, on the video camera's blue sign and the funny sound is again played as he's shown Miles' own icon, a pointillistic painting of a river with trees running parallel to it that could very well be by him, but also not, considering he normally opposes any form self-promotion.

"Alex?"

"Miles," he tones with a soft edge, "I don't see ye?"

"No, but I see you well enough. Any opinions on Théo van Rysselberghe's work of art? On how pointillism is _so_ grossly underrated?"

"Um-" Alex peers at it, disappointed Theo's imposing surname fails to ring a bell. "I couldn't tell but... yeh, to an outsider it looks pretteh, if a bit greyish. Still not prettier than ye, though." He sucks on the mint he stole from Miles' bedside table and swallows, wanting his voice to come out smoother. "I didn't wake you up, did I? It's only ten forty 'ere, I thought it's only a one-hour difference?"

"Yeah, it's nine th-" Miles hiccups and there's a bit of a sniffling sound afterward "irty here, I was just ordering stuff and the phone was at hand... so I thought of calling you. How are you holding up with, well, all the work and preparations?"

_Preparations?_

"Been better, Mi. Been better," The mint cracks under his incisors and he fantasises it's the vine wrapped around his head, the cool substance coming out his poor mushy brain, "I miss you."

Miles turns on the camera then, and Alex is greeted with the view of half a dozen piles of photo albums, laid in a criss-cross pattern over some of their carpet and coffee table, then it switches somehow and he sees Miles' face, listless and red. Apparently, he's perched on their chesterfield sofa, his elbow sticking out as his hand serves as a pillow. A leg is sure dangling too, he could bet on it, and on doing a double take of Miles' face Alex confirms his suspicions about his boyfriend being keyed up to the roof. His eyes seem puffy one second then the other look fine but that's probably because his pulse is shit, shaky as he holds up the phone. That's most likely alcohol. Alex tries not to look put off, entertains the idea maybe it's his friends' doing, to try and get him to come out of his shell. Not that he approves of it, but it's light years better than drinking or getting high alone, especially, for someone as generally inexperienced in that area as Miles. He drinks glasses of champagne maybe on celebrations, beers on occasion, and only a couple of tequila shots but mainly as a pretext to put salt on Alex, lick it off the bulging veins on his neck, pass slices of lemon back and forth through heated kisses and get him crazy horny.

"See?" The man touches the screen and now Alex is seeing his long legs –a shin hanging off in the air and lap, where an album lays open at the first page. The camera comes closer and the blurry shapes become twenty-year-old Alex and Miles at the French Alps, on top of some beginner's mountain that sure had a fancy, pleasant-sounding name to match its pristine beauty. Miles is sticking his head out of the queue and looking up front, not to the photographer exactly but to the slope, to the people going down at intervals, and he's gaping, wide-eyed, with his then longer hair tousled by the wind. Foolish love-struck Alex is only a few steps back, eyes fused to Miles' face, showing a little tight-lipped smile and an intense rosy blush that even though everyone fair-skinned more or less sported, he knows got worse when being close and alone with Miles. They weren't dating yet, and had actually gone on holidays with the monkeys' and some of Miles' friends, under the pretext that renting a wooden house was cheaper the more they were but it had to be people they knew would be cool and not some random strangers that could turn out to be fans and stalk them- as if, of course, their fan base consisted not of scattered groups of friends and relatives back in Sheffield.

Stupid little lies, all his.

He remembers the sweet nerves, too, and the mild flirting, the fear Miles wasn't into men at all and instead dating one of the stunning birds he'd brought along, and the memories sharpen more and more as Miles flicks through the pages and other people start coming into view. "All these are our photos together...the ones that we printed, anyway. Look at this, Al," The camera pans quickly to the piles then focuses back on his lap. "A bloody fortress. Twenty-one al- _HIC_ -bums for ten years plus. When was the last time you went through any of these? I'm guessing not as of late, sure... I'm on the twelfth and..." He leafs through the pages once, twice, then closes the thing with a thud, that so elegant hand resting over it as delicately as it were Alex longing-ridden chest. "It's impossible not to fall in love with you over and over again. And the pimples are still alive and well here, mind ya."

Alex has to concentrate on the dissolving bits of mint in his mouth to keep his fever in check. _Where did **that** come from now?_

"I felt the same looking at tha' one of us in the queue, 'it me like a wave. I was so twitchy around you, wanting to get noticed but lacking in confidence to go any further than holding yer hand..."

Miles tilts his phone and laughs heartily. "Shut up! I thought that was so bold back then...even when my thoughts were 90% about you and your dry lips and how I could kiss 'em better, bite the peeling bits off for ya."

Alex runs his tongue over them on reflex. "Reyt that."

"Hmm. We had fun, tho'."

"Weren't being ironic, luv." Alex smirks and stares into the camera, as if about to give some relevant, official announcement. "But I reckon it's been a while. I'd love to spend an afternoon just flicking through those wif ye...when things are more or less back to normal, yeh?"

There's a tense silence as Miles looks away from the big eyes on the screen, and Alex feels prompted to fill it.

"And we'll make mo'."

"Sounding too sure."

"Why wouldn't I be?" He flips a hand over, genuinely floored that Miles first reaction was wincing. "There's so much ahead for us, yeh? I know..." A sighs follows when he sees the man is facing him once more but his eyes are shut as if he were in pain. "Just talk to me, luv. Was it that bad with the guys? Who or what's bothering ye?"

"No, it was fine. 'ad a nice time together." Miles' head shakes tiredly with the weight of the images to-be and he momentarily dubs Alex one cruel lad for turning the knife in the wound like that. _You don't bloody ask me who, Alex_. **_Who!_** "We recorded and pulled everything together, including that two-part song you'd scratched out but they all voted to include. It's got a bit of that slow Cohen-like dark vibe, and there's some execs saying it'll flop right in, that the hits aren't radio-friendly and that you went back to peppering lyrics with too many swear words and British slang. I think it may be your finest work, and haven't heard more than samples of your voice. They're mixing it against the clock."

"A'ight, the main thing, eh?" A fond smile appears of its own accord as Alex mulls on the fact Miles only ever called paintings ' _fine'_ , and only those he'd been gushing over and analysing for months. Calling _'finest'_ his once _'plebby'_ rock cd, and so implying others where _'fine'_ , could only mean he'd gone full into sentimental-drunk mode.

"I'm glad it went okay though. Thank you. Imagine me pecking your cheek there," Miles squints as Alex kisses the back of his fingers then stamps them on the screen. "Emojis don't do but, yeah."

"It's a far cry." Eyes open further, take him in at last. "Shouldav snogged ya right there at the airport, hold the back of your neck and lap up all the sweet from that apple you'd wolfed down. Been regretting it all week. That and the night before..." There's sound of glass bottles toppling, perhaps a result of Miles stretching and knocking them down with his feet.

_I think you may just need a hug._

"I fucked up bad, baby."

Low sounds, as in classless grunting totally out of place at a felt confession, hopefully, are not what in-built laptop mics are able to catch. "Quite the detailed picture you have in mind, huh?" He tsks, "sadly, the apple was mo' of watery type, yanno? But yer welcome to kiss me all you want me when you get back 'ere. As long as this cold is gone...I'm yers for the take, Mi."

"... _aaaaaand_ right on cue, a display of your good." He nods, reaffirming his sayings. "Alex I _will_ miss you."

_What?_

"Miles, look at me." Alex snaps his fingers before his boyfriend breaks eye...digital eye contact again. "Mi, hell, I know we're going through a rough patch 'ere. I know you're not a fan of taking flights alone or deadlines or your routine being disrupted. It's been a hell of a shake-up to your comfort zone, I'm aware, okay? It's me fault." A slap lands on the right bottom of the laptop, fingers draw things next. "Ye...yer structure, the grey-lined music sheets and I'm the ink that took a wild turn at the G key and I get it's shocking to you, everything is. To me, too. You think I'm breezing through this, Miles? I try to live up to the inflated good image you 'ave 'f me but-"

"I-" A surprisingly plain and buttoned-up shirt takes up Alex's screen as Miles moves into a sitting position slowly and decides to set the phone on his lap. A burp is heard next. "I don't."

"Yes you do. You think I'm this undiscovered lyric genius and dismiss it took me four hours to think of that great line you love, you believe 'm so pretty I could make anyone fall fo' me even with me massive nose, you...idealised me a lot already. Now I guess it's just me, bein' a god or some sort of special thing, I s'posse."

"You're talented, you're attractive, and you have these incredible abilities, Alex. It's there," he looks at his hand, how his fingers go up as more qualities come to mind, "it's not me forcing them on you."

"t's _one_ side. It doesn't automatically cancel out the negative stuff, yeh? I can get insecure. I can feel worthless or good for nothing. You...you think moving around stuff easily makes me inure to fear? Try _prone to_ , reality is fast. A mistimed thought..." _and you almost catch fire._ "A look t' the side at the wrong time and someone gets shot, a tree falls on a family house, a dog is run over...and, yes, sure, none of it is my explicit responsibility but, you know, I was there before Death, you...you'd think I'd fookin' feel it poking around, you'd think I could _predict_ , feel summat's off. I should, right?"

His question echoes with the minimal voice delay, no answer whatsoever following it.

"Point is...I don't 'ave it that much together., and maybe it's me fault, yeh, always keeping in fings. Just as if I ever made you feel any less than loved or cared for past the physical, which I must've, or else you wouldn't be gettin' plastered on yer own and 'aving a look at our old albums..."

_Please be awake, I've talked to ceilings long enough._

"I'm sorry."

And then a hush that sounded pretty much like _please don't leave me_ though Miles' first registered it as _believe me._

He picks up the phone again then.  


_White. When he wakes up he's wrapped up in white, light and thick, and there's two tall brunets talking on either of his sides. Their hair is done up a neat bun that stands in contrast to their pearly green robes. They are each checking one of his legs with their gloved hands, slowly, as if looking for something._

_"Poor kid."_

_"He's lucky one!"_

_"I wouldn't call losing your only family at five 'lucky', Emma. Pass me more gauze."_

_"Aw but look how cute he is, it'd have been a waste of a pretty boy! The firebomber's report says they got him out only a minute before the fire got to the gas tank!"_

_"The car may as well have blown up by then..."_

_"Gee, close call, huh?"_

_That's all he remembers. A good old lady coming in with policemen in tow to interview him, wanting details and all he'd repeat was senseless blab about looking out to the pines, the ticking of the blood, the doctors. 'She's a psychologist' the nurses would remind him, smiling, as if the then unknown term was the solution to his long silences. It wasn't he couldn't speak, he'd nothing to say. There's no fire in his memory, no sirens, no rescuers even when these last swore he was crying dully at them to 'go away'.  
_

 

"You're all right."

_With you, Mi._

"And I forward it back to you, _don't leave_. You're important to so many people, and to me all the more, Alex, and..." his voice is tiny, almost a whisper, "I honestly don't get why you'd want to hear me say it one last time? There's no use, but here goes, _I love you_ , break my heart, set it on fire, shit on it, it's far too late for damage control. You won. I'm too stuck on you. Too drunk to keep it in, yes! I hate him! I hate it that you're going to run off with him and I can do fuck all about it! I'd swim my way back there to- to get you back, you're...a part of me. I can't imagine losing you. Don't want to."

"Losin'... _me_? I'm not going anywhere, luv. Can barely walk, ha."

The man shrugs, then curls his upper lip in a flash of anger. "Sure you are, with that bloody b-blond!"

" _Ahh_ , not this again!" Alex has to suck his lips in to keep himself from laughing at the idea he, at this point in time of all, would run off with Zackery. To where?! There's nothing even remotely attractive about him now- body, mood or abilities. They're all plain awful. "Miles? You know I love, even _need_ , your lit'l bursts of emotion to 'appen from time to time but-"

Miles holds up a finger and shakes his head slowly, eyes set on the tip of said finger until he blinks, and seems to process Alex's features. "You kind of asked me not too long ago, mid-argument _'Is that what you think of me?'_. I remember because I named a sketch after that but the thing is it was on the tip of my tongue to say: ' _yes, fuck, I think you're a whore_.' I'd never thought of you like that but the idea lingered for a while before I really dared to explore it, the concept of you being with him and... I realised, well, you're... the opposite. The complete opposite, Alex. Even implying you were anything else was stepping a line." His finger looked like it was tracing something on screen, some curves and sharp straight lines Alex stupidly followed until it dawned on him it had to be his own face, probably. A knowing smile greets his next blink, distorted too soon by a light scoff coming through. "If you've been sleeping with him, then it's because you lo-ve him and it's still just two people you fuck and no-one's paying ya or- "

"If _nothing._ Listen to me! I'm with you...and since we're making speeches..."Alex draws a breath in and decides he has to go through with it, that's not healthy for either of them to carry on like this. "Miles, I'm one of the few people who knows where that...deep _aversion_ to trustin' anyone stems from, yeh? I don't have a family, so of course I don't know the intricacies of big families, but I can picture having a cousin you were as thick as thieves wif out you during Christmas and making your family take sides and screw that unity from then on is shit even if your parents did support you. _Still_ , you've got to make an effort to stop reinforcing the idea that people, an' _me_ of all, are out to hurt or deceit you, Mi. Ho- how on earth..." Alex coughs three times and stops, eyes teary at his woeful attempt to stop the incoming fit.

Miles' frown at his rather aggressive bluntness melts on seeing the man's face whole is painted a deep shade of red. "Alex, are you okay?"

"No. wait, _ah_ -"

"Alex?!" Miles blinks to see the camera go blank, then pinkish, then black.

"Shhh," Creases precede a flutter of digits that soon reveal Alex sat up as he angles the screen back "'m here. It's just sometimes I lose me breath when lying, bending or just...not keepin' a straight posture _._ " He shoots Miles a rogue look but it's fleeting like a lighter's flame. Pursing his mouth, he elaborates. "It's like the baby stretches and doesn't let me get enough air in me lungs. Makes them shrink, perhaps, I dunno. Feels awful, though."

"Oh, okay. That's...yeah." Miles feels his pupils focusing for a moment and he can't figure it out if it's just the covers he's pulling up that make it seem so round or maybe he isn't recalling Monday morning all too clearly and Alex was already this...inflated. "Alex, you're- "

"Save it. I _know!_ " The man whines and accommodates his arms around his flexed legs, chin going to rest in between his kneecaps and possibly looking into the distance though the pixels don't let Miles tell.

"It isn't hurting you, is it?"

"No..." He slides his cheek over cold cotton then blows an absent kiss at Miles, properly puffing some air off afterwards and winking despite his overtly tired expression. Miles wants to reciprocate and try to match Alex level of suaveness, deep down. On the surface, however, he's unsure, pissed and scared it would come across as pathetic or fake, which is quite ironically how he actually feels at the moment, chatting with him as if it were just the two of them and the surrounding world has melted off, exploded or vanished. "There's these things, little pains 'ere 'n there, but nothing I can't handle. Don't worreh, love."

"Show me?" Miles ventures, after a couple of minutes spent in comfortable silence playing staring contests with his favourite sore-loser rival.  
  
"Can't. Use your imagination. The _g-o-v_ might, yanno, be lookin'!'"

"Oh, shoot, I forgot..." Miles gasps, feigning alert, " _how_ remarkably _dumb_ you can be at times, Alex!"

"Oi! Watch it!"

"But you're still my pumpkin."

The brunet's face lights up at that. It has to be _the_ cutest pet name Miles has ever assigned to him. Sure, it had to do a trifle with the fact it conjures up ready memories of Halloween and public shagging at Katie's very nicely decorated yard. They had been the first couple to do it and Alex had taken home a carved pumpkin he'd clung to while being rolled on the dirt- a fitting treat for a good boy, as Miles put it. It had been _years_...yet it felt more like weeks. "So, I lost me lit'l pumpkin pet name? Am I some big monstrous pumpkin now, luv?"

"Never. The baby-bump can take _'little lil pumpkin'_ , or ' _fake pumpkin'_ , or ' _little pumpkin 2'_ , your choice."

"Hmm," Alex knits his brows amusedly then taps lightly at the keyboard to up the brightness to the max. Miles seems to have sobered up all of a sudden, glancing forward to the right with narrowed eyes.

"Hey," Alex calls, casting a pensive look down himself. "How 'bout _'lil not-so-little pumpkin'_?

"I wish I could hug you." Miles sighs, exactly at the same time Alex mouths off, in a bit of a rush, ' _The things dicks can do, huh?'._

"Sorreh. I could use some huggin', yeh."

"Tomorrow then. Things have been hectic this week for you and me but we're better than this, okay? I've never trusted Zack and finding out about his abilities didn't help but... you're right. I'm sorry I turned cold on you. "

Alex leans over the screen, hands funnily interlocked on his stretched lower abdomen. "Apologies accepted. It's not like I can't take that punch, either. You've been thinking I'm doing Zack since like...2010?"

"There something about him I just...he feels _fake_."

"He's carefree and a bit of a hedonist. You can't stand that in people, that lack of definite," he sweeps his head to the side, hair flopping over his face as he looks up, three-quarter-view posture held as if ready to have Miles paint it in a portrait, " _grand_ goals."

"No, I can't stand how he acts around you." Miles bites his lip and feels the urge to down the half-full thimble, then go for the bottle. It was cheap, light vodka, so it couldn't really hurt.

"He's a fool, period."

"Okay, fine, that's it." Miles snatches the thimble and tips it into his mouth. "I take your word. He is just a fool, done. That's out of the way. Just you and me, okay?"

"Yeh," Alex sags his shoulders and let his face come closer to the screen. He's dying to _touch_. Anything, everything. How's anyone supposed to be content with just seeing and listening? Didn't they feel heaps of anxiety at the thought the people they cared about seemed trapped in the nonsentience of a digital, flat dimension? _"Please_..."

Miles hand starts vibrating, and it takes his intoxicated brain some time to convince itself it's actually coming from the glass, not the phone . "Alex, is it you?" He questions in unalloyed awe then eases his hold on the small object, follows with his eyes its line of movement as it flies back to a desk by the vinyl player and is put down there.

Miles is gaping when he turns his head back to the phone.

"Woah!"

"Stop the drinking. Enof for today, yeh?"

"You never said you could do that...an ocean away?!"

"Apparently..." Alex pictures Miles' coin pendant spinning around and Miles gawks contently, fingers moving to grab it while Alex is still focusing on it, now at healthier distance from the screen. "'ave never really tried it before."

"It's getting warm like... your hands, I guess. It's a good thing you've got a tranquil temper. There's so many things you could do, good and bad." He hints with a dropping tone, thumb running over the embossed golden tree. " _We_ could."

"Things, eh?" Alex cocks an eyebrow and extends his right hand to leave it softly hanging in the air, fingers flickering as if he was playing the piano on his phone. Miles mirrors the gesture without thinking, giving in to Alex's gaze and its captivating effect as he narrows and softens it at intervals, almost...could he? Miles brings the partly numb hand he'd left up down and feels his chest with it, how that sweet sort of electrical current seemingly seeping from his hand tricks him into thinking he's never been touched before, anywhere, but it's okay, he is so warm inside his skin would outright melt any hand laid on him for even for a few seconds.

"Alex," lids fall to give way to the calm sense that turns desperate missing into a non-frantic pining that was patient, because it knows it's temporal and close to end.

"I'm glad we _finally_ talked, Mi."

"I were expecting something more poetic from you, to be honest?" Miles cracks open an eye and runs his cooling hand along his collarbones, up the side of his neck and over his ear. Stroking his short hair, he mocks Alex's overdone pout and gets a rush of cold wind blown into his face. It gives him shivers and Alex seems to perk up at it.

"Hey!"

"Oi, anticlimactic much?"

"I've just promised not to breach the subject of Zackery bloody Michael ever again." He yawns, much coincidentally. "I think it's pretty grand, Al."

A spike of electricity zips in through Alex's ears at listening of his shortest nickname, momentarily spurring on his fever. He resists the urge to chatter his teeth, but only just. "Off your mind, too. It don't make no sense if ye just keep it from me. If you feel it still it's fine, bring it out. I love that about you, 'ow outspoken you normally are."

"Promise, it's off my mind."

"Fair enough." Alex mumbles and hugs his knees closer, holding Miles' gaze like a bouquet of crystal camellias.

_"_ _If I had a flower for every time I thought of you... I could walk through my garden forever."_ **_***** _ **

Miles hums and taps his lip and Alex watches, mentally pleading him to stop being so enticingly beautiful because he's burning up enough as it is already. "Pleasantly corny, yeah...kind of cliché ...seven out of ten."

"Oh, shut up!" Alex starts bouncing his bare feet on the mattress. Damn, he's _cold_. "Tennyson is crying in his grave. Hope yer aware, ye twat."

"Watch and learn, lil pumpkin." Miles clears his throat and a fleeting image of Alex lying on a field of white lilies of the valley flashes in the back of his retina, his ripped jeans and that hole-ridden light blue t-shirt making an impact against the delicate bell-shaped flowers he enjoys painting so much. It takes him a while to recall the opening line for some reason but his reciting flows on once his tight voice starts threading words together, a mite less sober than love-struck.

_"Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,_  
Enwrought with golden and silver light,  
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths  
Of night and light and the half-light;  
I would spread the cloths under your feet:  
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;  
I have spread my dreams under your feet;  
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." ******

"I've been told I'm soft one or twice..." Alex whispers, both shocked and reeling to see his boyfriend be this romantic for him.

Happy his memory didn't fail him, Miles nods and the corner of his mouth tilts up.  
  
"You are."

"...but I'll keep on gathering evidence just in case."  


X

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >>Disclaimer: Neither the poem nor the quote are of my authorship ~~quite obviously~~.
> 
> *Quote by Alfred Tennyson.
> 
> **"The Cloths Of Heaven" by W.B. Yeats.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //A/N: It's been a while, huh? I said I'd come back to this, though, so...if there's anyone still following this story, hi!! I had to change the rating of the fic because of this chapter, so please bear that in mind. I don't usually write smut so, um, yes, this may not be the best chapter to make a comeback????!? I tried ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (If you want to skip the sexy times you should stop reading when they get in the hot tub!!)

X

 

 

It's like those vaporous dreams you have when waking up at six and realising there's only one hour of sleep left for you. A great time for lucid dreaming, Miles knows, he'd drink tons of water as a teen just to wake up sometime around four or five, rush to the bathroom, then slink back in to sleep with a stirred-up-by-reality brain. Now he uses an alarm, or mostly becomes self-aware on his own. Walking alone around the airport he pinches his palms a handful of times, and looks at clocks, stops to retrace how he got to the taxi and then to the beach and there is not a speck of doubt in him when holding the shell-shaped door knob that whatever he finds inside would be the result of Alex's resolve, not his brain's.

Still, reality feels all too light.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
Alex... is nowhere to be seen.

Miles takes a deep breath and puts his bags down, reminding himself to be calm, to trust what his boyfriend had said. He closes the door next, and takes some tentative steps into the living room.

"Alex?"

"Mi?"

The soft tone steers him into the kitchen, where he sees the silhouette of a man perching casually on a kitchen counter, scooping a white substance up and out of a transparent bowl he'd set right on his belly, like it's nobody's business. Curtains swell with the slow flow of air coming in from the open sliding glass door, and the sun shines weakly as if not to disturb the shadows that fall over what has to be Alex. A closer look reveals he's wearing denim shorts that hang loose around his thighs and a red, black, and lime green, flowery velvet kimono Miles had been given as a present during his summer spent teaching in Japan. Phone somehow in hand Miles cannot help but snap a handful of shots. The quest for power soft light and shadows were playing on Alex profile would make it hell of a challenge to paint- if he ever got around to. Done, he puts it away and prances towards his boyfriend in an amused mood, fetching a spoon somewhere in the process and tapping the hard plastic with it when he was standing in front of Alex.

"May I?"

"Do I know you, sir?" Alex crosses his dangling legs and shoots Miles a playful look as the arch of one bare foot slides _up_ the curve of his boyfriend's hip. "Are ye by any chance the one Mother picked to marry me and share the yoghurt throne with, hm?

_And down._

"Me?" Miles points at him and then at Alex shirtless torso, running a hand down it appreciatively. He is hot- literally, too. "Oh no, I'm just paid to take your pictures. A yoghurt prince like yourself is surely much too out of my league. "

"That's some wild assumptions yer makin', photographer. Explain yerself."

"This fine velvet, sir." Miles' fingers brush the cloth softly. "Your perfectly styled hair, the ray-ban aviators... I'm too much of a peasant, surely."

Miles sinks his spoon in what turns out to be vanilla yoghurt with ice-like lumps of apricot and watches Alex trade paleness for bright pink as he mumbles at him to keep to his side of the bowl and savour it slowly, that it was very cold.

"What are you doing here?"

"Hm?"

Fingers tap marble, then slide. A thigh is squeezed upon collision. "Why sit here?"

"Wot? You wanted me gone now?" Alex licks the spoon and cocks a quizzical eyebrow at his boyfriend, playing fool when knowing exactly what the man meant. In reality, he wants to cool off, the reading of 39ºC on the thermometer nearly making him break into sobs this morning. The marble, the iced yogurt, the sea wind kind of help, or at least take his mind off how scalding everything in him feels. It has been a steady rise since 37ºC, it seems, and the ibuprofen keeps on wearing off before the six-hour periods he is supposed to take each at, messing with his stomach in the way. But what good is a stomach with a fried-out brain? The Internet is clear about how that all self-medication attempts should be stopped at 40ºC, how you either dash to a hospital or call an ambulance if your life is any dear to you. He'd been _yahooing_ , however, and none of the dangerous high-fever illnesses seemed to match his case, except for meningitis maybe, but he recalls being vaccinated against that and he really wants to think he isn't unlucky enough to get the very rare strings that it didn't cover. Plus, he feels mostly okay. Annoyed, perhaps. Uncomfortable? Yes.

"That's not an answer, Al."

"Yer... _insistent_ today, luv, huh? I 'ave a _kink_ , big fookin' deal." Alex shrugs, frowning at some yoghurt that resists being scraped off the plastic. "How's home? Everything's all right, yes?"

Miles takes the bowl from Alex's hands and drops it in the sink, soon dragging Alex's idle legs apart enough to stand right between them. Surprised to see the man's smile fail, to see him slide back, Miles surges forward with a renewed need of warmth, of Alex's lips and smell and calming touch but their noses bump, then their foreheads, and when he tries for the opposite angle it happens again so he blinks. He catches Alex mirroring his movements and so stops, thinking that, if asked, he'd be hard-pressed to tell the tantalising effect of getting awkwardly hit in the head and be made feel as inexperienced as if eleven.

"Did Alex Turner forget how snogging works? I'm in shock." Miles smirks, holding Alex chin in place so he can quiet... shiver? He closes his eyes next and Miles feels spellbound again by the selfish warmth he irradiates, can't decide whether it's top priority to fuck him or give him head.

Alex blinks and fixes him with a tender stare. "I haven't brushed me teeth."

"And that's supposed to...?"

"Gross you out, 'f course." His hand grabs Miles' and guides it back to his own chest, pushes him back slowly. "Gross you out very badly, luv."

 

 

X

 

"Pippa, Pippa, Pippa."

The cat blinks her eyes open and stretches her body forward. There is a soft singsong calling her name and she trots happily towards it, towards the back garden and into the woods, her paws easily dodging the stones and fallen branches after that short, brown-haired human had taught her how to hunt insects and climb up trees more swiftly last week.

She stops and sits, tail lazily swooping up the grass behind her at the vaguely familiar face. She is brushed softly and shown a sparkly black ball again, which she sniffs first, then hisses at on instinct, the hand on her back still patting it in a placating manner as she is spoken to. The order-like tone quiets her dislike towards the object that keeps changing shapes too soon and wildly. There _is_ some appeal to it if you really look into it she finds, after some minutes, and her paw goes shyly up to touch it, ears shot up in alert.

"Rub," Zack says, grabbing her by the scruff and pushing her against his vibrant knee. Her fur absorbs it off easily and Zack makes her sit again. "Good. Rub it off him, okay?" he whispers, hands shaky as he looks around, paranoia evident.

Pippa finds herself a foot away from the fretful man and, as she studies him, she sees a shiny black spot resurging on his knee and expanding out. Taking a few cautious steps forward, she eyes it then bumps her head against it, body soon following and giving her fur a fizz.

"Good, that's-" Zack startles, hand flying to his mouth before he realises it's only his smartphone vibrating in his pocket. Taking it out, he checks the caller ID and holds his breath as best as he can.

"Fuck."

The vibrations soon go off again, as texts start pouring in.

_wanna test my stalking abilities, is that it?_

_where u @ zachie zack_  
  
last time i'm asking ♥

Zack gets up and in a swift movement starts sprinting north to get out of the thick of forest, his legs giving long stretches so he'd have fewer chances to trip over.

"I'm off to... _now_ , right this fucking moment, _fuck_..." He comes to a stop when seeing poor Pippa is right by his side, and has been eagerly following him around. Of course, he's probably spilling it everywhere in his hurry. "Pippa, hey, look" He snaps his fingers, the cat turning instantly to see again a black ball rolling down the low hill and towards her newest home. "Go catch it, practice. And..." Zack crouches again, hands tense as if he was holding together an air bomb that was about to blow up. "Rub. It. Off. Him. Okay? Good kitty. Go!" And she is gently throw towards it, her sight quickly following the speedy thing until she was back on the back porch of her owners' house and the ball vanishes. She flicks her head around a few times then gets distracted by her way too long nails, deciding to pluck some off.

That is, until one of her owners comes out, too. To sit down and read a book.  
  
  


X

  
"I wish you'd told me sooner," Miles cups some clear, lukewarm water with a hand and dabs it delicately over Alex's already wet forehead, and along that heart-shaped hairline. He's got the man in their six-people tub, draping lazily between his marginally longer legs, arm half-wrapped at waist height, hand resting on the brink of the downward slope of his belly, and thumb drawing half-moons on the taut skin tenderly. Back to his chest, Alex looks soft as ever as his lips go up into an easy smile yet Miles can't see past his worry that it's the fever that has him so pliant and quiet, not his tending to.

"Alex?" He lowers his head to the man's exposed neck, pressing his lips in silent pecks. "Talk to me. Open your eyes, c'mon."

Alex slides himself further into Miles, exposing more of his neck in earnest and puffing a keen hum out when his boyfriend doesn't stop. This, he had been missing. "You came in yesterday morning. It's barely been more than a day." Alex peeks out of one eye to Miles. "And I didn't actually tell you. I knew you'd worreh."

"Right, you're a brat."

Miles' head comes up to peck, too, the heaters Alex currently has for temples and he bites his lip, trying not to panic as he hurries to dab them, left and right, "And I'd have to be blind stupid, Al. A night picnic by the sea doesn't make most people go hot, or sweaty. The wind was crazy, fuck, I had a hoodie on!" He brings many more handfuls of water to his forehead, cheeks and jaw, pointy chin and nose just in ...

"Achoo," Alex sneezes once, loud and sudden, making Miles jump a bit but stop not his second round of dabs.

"Bless-"

"'Choo. Achoo." Alex head swings back and forth. "Stop putting water in me nose, you git!" He wipes his nose with his forearm, sneezing again, hearing Miles' low _didn't mean to, baby_ still gluing his palm to the back of his serial dabber of a hand and slipping his fingers in the slots that cede between his fingers, with well-known ease. Directing their hands it to his glistening chest, he makes a point to exhale out loud so water could run down his nose. He gives some quick, minimal shakes of his head and stares at the simple grip in thought.

"Anyway..." His tone seems to drop with his head as he bends to kiss the jutted knucklebones, one by one, admiring how refined and hold-able some hands may actually look like.

" _You,_ by the soft glow of the candles, feeding me oysters in me mouth with these fingers, or yer tongue...oh, I'd say it _is_ more than enough to give me ten raging hard-ons one after the other, Mi." He squeezes the hand for emphasis then presses his cheek to Miles' shoulder, body rotating sideways into the man's touch so that his hand now rests on the lower edge of his belly, where once upon a time a v-line used to exist. "Gets me all hot and bothered, luv."

"That's a load of tosh. When I touched your nape..." Miles caresses Alex's side, remembering the utter confusion he felt when his hands met wetness and burning skin. His stupid own first instinct was to think a bird had pooped on him.

"38ºC, you've seen it. It's been going down since you came back, it was nearing forteh but it's okay 'cause-"

"Don't you start." Miles spits. Quick, sharp, like a bullet cutting through glass. There, on his chest, the fleeting duty to mother Alex grows. His boyfriend is quite frequently headstrong about illness and mistrusting of doctors, but to take it so far as to dismiss a temperature of almost 40ºC seems unreal to Miles. Especially when he thinks back to his childhood and his overprotective parents, how he was queueing at the hospital only hours after getting a temperature, note: 37-ish ºC. Only-child syndrome, maybe, but they have successfully passed it on him. He would be a hundred times calmer if a doctor could actually see Alex and give him some antibiotics or whatever ugly-tasting stuff that would make him get better.

"It is, now. I've been feeling mo' like meself since that afternoon reading out there with Pippa in me lap, you paintin'...I had such peace, I dunno." Alex rubs his hairless chest, with a fond smile. "When I took it again after showering it was only thity seven poin five"

"And now it's up again," Miles sighs, gutted.

" _Now_ it's night-time, when fevers get the worst, you mean."

"Yeah, well..."

"You know what's up again, too?" Alex coos, angling his hips down into Miles' upper thigh, delivering a sinister little smile and hoping to get some reaction out of his boyfriend. Should he slip a thigh in? No? Oops." 'n case you missed it, luv. It's right 'ere."

"No...no. Alex, _no._ "

Alex gasps, seizing his chance to play with the words said and maybe nudge around with his knee. He's really being _so_ delicate, what's with those 'no's? Three? Oh, but if he could make straight blokes so very keen to shag him when singing in whispers, playing around with the microphone, shooting some cheeky wink. Miles should be falling over himself already. "I take it then you didn't _miss_ me either?! It's just _so_ _hard_ to hear ye say that when all your pretteh boyfriend wants is t'have," he bucks forward, affecting a whimper, "a little... _ah..._ f-fun?"

"Alex," Miles tightens his embrace, lips aiming for that sweet soft spot above Alex's left ear and giving it a poppy kiss. "Get. Better. I'll touch you all you want then."

"But you _are_ , Mi, yer joost... " Alex floats himself up so that Miles hand slides down slippery skin. He whines, "Go farther south hm?" May be a lil surprise for ye. Just for ye, baby."

A huff and a light shove, that's what Alex gets in exchange and it cracks something deep inside him, or maybe it's just the porcelain around getting veined-shaped crevices that expand down from the surrounding rim.

Following the sound, Miles drops his gaze and is swiftly enthralled by the visual beauty of it, of the ivory shades fine and thick, branching out at random, some coming to a stop, some continuing on and on until they get under his feet and start taking on more circular shapes. It's clear to Alex the situation they're in has been forgotten altogether and far from flattering him, it riles him up further on seeing physical, real _he_ stopped being the centre of his boyfriend's attention to some stupid, remnant-magic doings.

"'m not-" He announces, turning grave as he flicks his gaze down and up to Miles art-processing eyes. "- taking me health lightly when it doesn't concern me only. If it had got to forteh I'd have called Zack or fill the tub with ice and get in, or both...I were worried... I still am, okay? Just less, because I'm feeling better. I can actually eat and not vomit, sleep, and have some sex drive which felt dead n' buried two days ago."

Miles gropes for words, still caught up in the spiral cracks gave shape to, underwater. It's mesmerizingly beautiful, and it seems to be acquiring depth, when squinted at. He wants to run his fingers very badly, through it, tries-

"Miles!" Alex pinches at his chest, not at all gently, and keeps it up when he sees the man's lip is curling but he's but still looking down, his arm trying to leave his back even when Alex holds it in place. He wants to put a stop to his magic, but he'd need his temper to cool for that, ergo, miles stopping ignoring the hell out of him.

"MILES PETER KANE!"

Miles feels himself being shaken and he loses his focus on the lovely carved curves. Alex face comes into view and it is like waking up from a dream of symmetry into another of dips and perfectly traced shadows. "Fine, fine, don't get yourself all worked up now. I'll... be back in a tick. Rinse your hair in water for me, yeah?" The brunet nods dutily and curiously takes in the view of Miles stepping non-too-gracefully out of the tub and into his yellow flip flops, grabbing a starchy towel to pat his limbs dry. Alex's heavy-lidded eyes ogle hungrily at his boyfriend's bum while his head goes slowly back into the water like some shampoo commercial. He tele-snaps the knot he's made on his hip undone and Miles leaves naked, hardly noticing Alex little deed.

He chortles and goes underwater, soon thinking about those bath bombs back at home, how well they'd mix with the water here, the petals, the glitter, the sweet smell sticking to his skin, setting the mood for romance.  
  
But there's _one_ , oh...'sex bomb' was it called?  
  
He can almost feel it being _dropped._  
  


 

X

"C'mon," Alex lets himself be pulled up by a soft hand on the small of his back. He opens his slightly stingy eyes and shivers a bit at the room's cool temperature.

The voice is smooth and sweet like cotton candy. It calls his name in question as deft fingers loop what feels like ice pack with a strap around his forehead and then another around his neck. "Tell me what you want?"

"FFFFFfffuuuck" He sputters out when Miles is done with his neck, hands clutching at his flanks on reflex. It seems to be the pivotal point where the heat originates and he inwardly thanks Miles for arranging them before he can protest much, and for pressing his hand down on it to get the initial shock over with quicker. The cool is harsh against his skin and it almost hurts but it's the price to pay to feel better later on, he knows.

"Easy," Miles moves his hand up to the space in between his boyfriend's scapulas and tries rubbing some soothing circles he knows Alex never fails to appreciate while trying his best not to wince at the iron grip the suddenly high-strung man has on his sides. "The water isn't cold yet, that's good news. Unless you're backing off, baby?"

"Baby," Alex echoes, in a smooth whisper he blows along the shell of Miles' ear. "I never back off."

"Yeah," he admits, lust slowly coming to surface, "guess that's more like it."

"'t is, love." Alex angles his face again to Miles neck and that perfect little head cradle that is his shoulder. He closes his eyes and smells the traces of the white rose soap Miles stole off from him some weeks ago. It'd left him with his- minty, yeti-fresh, man-bear beast. Manly, way too macho-manly for the mood that is taking hold of him.  
  


"Make love to me," he purrs, hands slipping down to push his boyfriend's hips closer to him, "Soft and slow. Full o' feeling. I want you vulnerable and gasping and close, so fuckin' close. Nuffin' like last time, yeh?"

Miles flushes at Alex's quick settling on his lap, the hot press of his thighs as they straddle him, broad and encompassing even when not weighing down. His erection is pressing right into the inner side of his left thigh, poking his growing semi-on at the tip, a snap of electricity tearing through him like he were wrapping paper coming easily apart in enthusiastic hands. "I was... _bitter_. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"I don't mind if you want t' rough it up, you know. But gimme some heads-up, like, not a second before, like...don't shut me out? I'm pretty much up to anything, yeh? Like... sure, I 'ave me moods but- _ah_ ," Miles lets his back slid down smooth porcelain, wanting to line up his boyfriend's angry-hard dick with his. Alex wiggles at the movement, then thrusts up in trial, hold firm on Miles hips to prevent further slipping. A little sound sails up his throat, through the teeth that are sucking his lower lip in its entirety. The loosening in his chest is not in the least casual when Miles' hands slip unabashedly down to cup his ass and squeeze in varying degrees of intensity as he ruts on, like there's still room to appreciate the well-known and get lost in the thick of want, of heated, teasing touch. Like there's no end to intimacy, no hurry, either. " Hmm yeah, luv, thassit. Fookin' kills me when you push me away and leave me guessing."

"I knew you'd be hurt, wanted to. I felt I wouldn't get to you any other way." Miles concedes and it's sincere, some new brand of spite branching out from his general dislike of Zack and the effect his existence had on him, how it dare mar Alex's easy, understanding, talk-to-me-'bout-anyfin' loving nature to his eyes. His hands slide down Alex's thighs reassuringly, egging him on to come meet him, pick a slow, steady rhythm. He growls when Alex tosses his ankles round his back, bringing him closer, making him raise his hips as he looks into eyes, pitch black little pools dense with desire that remind him of the sweet marmite that gets smeared all over Alex's lips when he eats it from toast, crackers...or pink wafers. He should really have him lick it off his dick sometime. It's been a while. "I'm sorry."

" _Good."_ He nibbles Miles' jaw, wishing for more stubble. "Let's try again then, shall we? I'm not topping today."

Miles hums, hand going to wrap loosely around them and making Alex bite back a moan as his chest heaves and his eyes go glossy where he looks down sideways at the sure grip. He's shivering. "I really don't want to, Mi. Fookin' can't, yeah? "

Miles tuts and gives Alex a few quick strokes. It leaves him arching out his ass quite prettily, and hissing like the little bitch he is. "Written all over your face, it is. You need it bad Alex, don't you?"

Nodding, he squeezes his eyes shut, tongue coming out to dampen the cracks of dry skin of his own lips. Miles sinks a nail easily into the slit in response, and taps at the precum joining the mess of bubbles, cream, glitter and, perhaps, still, water. He bends to bestow a kiss on tip of the happy compulsive buyer of baths bombs, then gives a hard smack to his thigh.

"Yes, fuck!" His body lurches forward, hands going up to meet raspy hair and rake through it and _pull_. His mouth is bumping with Miles' when he puffs out a long, wanton whimper into it, that slim pointer finger dragging its neat nail again into the slit.

"Be a cute tame bottom?" Miles' free hand hovers on Alex's perfectly unmoving wet hair, above the strap of the ice packs. Pawning softly, he brings some tresses out at the tempo of Alex's sudden timid _ah's and_ dragged-out _mmm's._ He's swirling his thumb around the tip, tapping it a couple of times before leaving off, completely, to stroke a tense flexed arm, to have his gaze follow locks instead. They come slapping on his boyfriend's forehead and lose wetness in drops that, smartly, race to a mouth pants keep agape.

"Yours." Alex murmurs, taking Miles' hand down and back, to his spread legs.

"What's that, Al? Come again?"

"I'm re-ah- _ah_ "

He feels Miles's thumb slip slowly into him and Alex takes it as his cue to shut up and close the distance, close his eyes. He gives in to the darkness, the safe type, the one that enhances feelings at its ever-random will, and sways you into intimacy without seeing. He allows his hand to fall over Miles' languidly but expectation has him uptight, his breath hitching even as Miles zaps his lips open, dragging his apart in the process. The fear of not being able to connect flashes through his mind, once, in that pause of action, but it's put well aside when Miles' hand tenses under his and squeezes playfully at the rhythm his clever tongue is poking his in a bit of a dare.

Pulling back for a breath, Miles blinks to see a stern pout.

"I'm waitin' 'ere. And kissin' isn't cutting it, luv. Get movin'."

Of course, it's a beck and call. His thumb leaves and is replaced with two fingers that trace the rim, making a Alex beg half-heartedly until they poke, and maybe Miles bucks against his thigh then, verbally reminding him of his place, how he should speak and, slap to his cock in between, 'Repeat, Alex, _repeat._ '. It works wonders, and when the digits, slip in at last, a relieved sigh rings well into his ear paired with a 'more, _please_ '. He's careful, though, as he starts pushing them farther up, hoping Alex had stayed up late at night fucking himself with toys, his fingers or _both_ , the thought of it conjuring images so utterly filthy in Miles' mind his rather neglected cock twitches right by Alex's bushy pelvis, and earns a replica from Alex's hypersensitive one. Miles free hand finds his boyfriend's dark nipples, somehow, and it twinkles them, fingertips closing around one, then the other, until Alex is calling him nasty, nasty things and he barely notices the tip of a third finger joining in the breach. He ends up giving Alex a light hickey on his collarbone for being such a good sport and taking it in breezily, clutching but easing off, helping Miles go further up and fuck him better, just like he deserved.

"You smell so good," his mouth goes off, and it's true, if a bit random. Alex looks at him starry-eyed, pushing back against the searching digits holding him open and not taking a break, making him accustom to being scissored good until his deep-rooted bottoming inhibitions start fading and he grows ravenous for thickness, even as his prostate is prod by an persistent fingertip, he swallows and clutches Miles' bicep, he wants to be pounded, he needs cock, Miles' cock to be precise, buried to the hilt in his hole, snug, warm, and throbbing. "I think I want to lick every inch of you."

Alex curls his neck down, suddenly, head hanging low as he sets loose a string of helpless, ragged moans and he tries to stare at his hand clasping his own dick at the root but all he sees is his belly. Sensing what's happening, Miles leans down to get in Alex's line of sight while, underwater, a hand goes to help Alex squeeze his dick into a nice case of blue balls. He knows that quivering lip and unfocused pupils all too well, Alex isn't close, really, he is on the brink of blowing up his load and Miles stares right into his eyes in a silent, obviously romantic conversation. _'Don't you fucking come_ ,' he's telling him. _' 'm trying, Mi!_ ' Alex replies, unsure, because he could definitely hold some sort record for embarrassingly fast climaxing when not getting down on a daily basis.

Thankfully, he hangs on and Miles finishes his prepping with a couple of quick thrusts before pulling out.

"I smell like a fookin' pine... and that's got you going?! You don't lick trees, you perv." Alex whiffs his armpits on as Miles chortles, a feeling of fondness washing over him and warning him that, perhaps, he's never going to be done falling in love with this fool. Alex can tell something is up, however, as Miles' heartbeat picks up pace for a good ten seconds then evens out again. Miles knuckles brush up and down muscled hips before he gets a handful of bum to haul Alex up, up until he towers over him a little and he has to crane his neck to cut the ramblings short with his tongue and spit and some hard nibbling and suck-suck-sucking that may or may not resemble kissing.

"There _, ah,_ don't move." Miles mouths, making Alex flicker his gaze down and read hungry lips more than hearing it. He does feel, however, some of that so-longed-for thickness slip into him in increments, as he arches, gives way and melts over Miles as best as he could with what looks like a bowl sticking out his abdomen.

"Put it in, _hmm, yeh. "_ Alex holds his boyfriend close by his thin neck, which he caresses with care, "Make me yers."

"I thought this was claim enough?" Miles settles a hand on Alex's navel and the man cries at the contact, high-pitched and visceral, pushing down and effectively impaling himself of Miles' ready fuck muscle.

"No! No, _noooo_. Got it all wrong, you. I could be anyone's as it is, yanno..." Alex blows air through pursed lips, freeing his face of some curls, and makes a show of circling his ass slowly around Miles, eyelids heavy, calloused fingers snuck under his armpits to help him come up and give their point of connection a better angle.

Miles' knees flex and he grasps Alex by the fold of his sweet butt cheeks, where firm plump skin meets equally beefy and spank-able tights. Alex inhales sharply at the feel of Miles partly sliding out save for that swollen tip that stays.

"You are what? _Anyone's_?"

"Dunno"

"No?"

Alex puckers up his lips, shaking his head slowly.  
  
"Think harder, come on." Miles takes hold of himself and slips out, driving his cockhead back to Alex's balls, base and up again. "What, is there something bothering you? Distracting you? _Ohhh_ ," He coos in jest, " _Al, baby,_ _what is it_?"  
  


Alex screws his eyes shut, inwardly cursing Miles for poking him with dick like that and expecting him to be stock quiet. "Keep this up 'n..."He trashes lightly against the hand on his lower back and whines, cursing his poor timing to start possessiveness games. Miles is sharp today, very likely more than him. He decides to switch tack, going for petting Miles quiet with one hand, the other still on the man's side for support " _...please, I'll be good. Let me show ye, Mi. I can't show anyone but ye, me artsy hottie, me classy man, me love._ "

Splashing a good half bucket of water out Miles connects Alex's spread, pliant legs to him as the man pants, and slides his feather touch to his boyfriend's surely aching balls. The feeling of pushing him against the porcelain opposite and fucking him into oblivion is high as ever but Alex is already bouncing with a deep, unhurried pace, so he lets him run the show for a while.

"You... _good?_ You're deadly baby." He gazes over Alex's shoulder to where a hand once meant to guide is now brushed by globes of flesh, a sculpture of an ass almost asking to get licked. He gives in, aiming for some quick short smacks that have Alex bump first-head into his chest, open-mouthed and drooling.

"This is mine, Alex." Miles splays his hands over sensitive skin and feels the ripples cut across his dick as he moves to switch their positions, sending more water off the tub as one of Alex hands scours for something to hold onback on the surrounding marble from but instead manages to throw off the edge most of the shampoos and soaps.

"Yers?" Alex's eyes look drunken as they look up and straight to Miles while his back slides up and down the unyielding cool material, enjoying it, but not as much as being finally pounded. He swallows, voice breaking beautifully. "'m not that convinced, yet." Alex squeezes Miles' balls where he still grips them, a finger tantalisingly sliding back into that sensitive spot of smooth skin. He smiles, though, a lopsided thing, warped with panting, to let the other now it's all just a game, that he's too overwhelmed to wipe out a poem or some fantastic love declaration but the feelings are there.

"Five?" Miles takes Alex's cock in his hand and arches an eyebrow, taking those dripping curls in a fist and tugging them all back hard enough Alex's head has no choice but to follow.

"Or three, two..." The brunet laughs, a punishing thrust cutting it short and making him roll his eyes back and see stars. "Fuck, okay, five, babeh, five." He tries to nod and Miles lets go of his hold so he can.

"One," Miles pumps his fist up and down the shaft as he leans in to kiss his boyfriend's nipples, poke them with his tongue, pinch the brown peaks, coat them with saliva, anything but bite, Alex's favourite.

From there he heads for the dip in between his collarbones, where he delves in his hungry tongue, and actually scratches Alex's neck in warning, his pulse piercing into his hand, his ass clutching him and making his vision blurry, his limbs lighten.

"Count, Al, go on."

Neck. There's more licking, in the form of stripes and Alex curls his toes at the way his Adam apple is circled, his veins, the tendons that connect to the shoulders. Miles tongue is vicious, and it spits and presses but his teeth are shy, unlike his cock that's driving right into his prostate with alternated shallow and full-force thrusts "Two, three," His voice quivers, his dick leaking madly.

Miles nods reassuringly and inches closer to his face, hand pulling the gel pack up and off. He arranges the shorter tresses behind of his dumbo-ish ears with fingertips soft, his thrusts diminishing in speed, not depth. He cups Alex's balls and smirks while twisting his finger around, the cold of his rings making Alex breath catch and release in sudden, chesty moans.

"Four," He drags his hand slowly up and slowly down.

"Hmmmmm," Alex closes his eyes and waits, not at all believing he's actually pulled through it all without finishing in three minutes, or fainting. It is sure intense, being on the receiving end of an emotional fuck, susceptible and open all throughout it, like Miles' mouth now is on his as he whispers _five_ into it and his body leans into him. It takes him a few breaths more to really let go, but _it's all right, baby, it's all right_ , and of course, it is. He's awashed with pure ecstasy and deliriously sharp hot flashes of white numbing his vision, mind, and senses as he comes hot and heavy, feeling almost like melting into the tub as he's pushed against it in urgency.

"Give it t' me, show me, Mi." Alex drawls full into his high, voice still majorly strained as Miles rolls into him seeking his own, and grunting when he finally does, when he joins Alex in his bliss and come spurts out in bursts that seem to go on and on and on as he's pecking at those wet, squishy lips that pucker up readily when he stops to breathe out of a litany of vague, soft-spoken insults that are overshadowed only by more pecks until he breaks the cycle, sometime later, to open his eyes and see Alex radiant and beaming. He pulls off and unclenches his boyfriend's softening cock.

"Thank you," Alex breathes.

Miles runs his hand down Alex's cheek, drowsily, realising with a slight frown he's spread some cum on it and so scoops it up. Alex takes out his tongue, though, and Miles complies eagerly enough, giving him the dirty digits, which he sucks dry like he's never had a choice. Watching the swollen lips, the bedroom eyes and the rumpled half-dry hair, Miles wonders if he looks so obviously well fucked too.

"Alex, you're a great lay."

"Been told that a coupla times."

"Have you now?"

"Yeh... this lanky man, first fucked him in a tour van, bent him over the couches among the ampsa' guitar." He shrugs a shoulder, gives a cocky smile. "Right over asked me if I was going on tour soon and if so where. A bit stalker-ish, you see. That's 'ow me dick leaves ' em."

"And you told him?"

"Yeh, I've got a soft spot for him. He fucks me in a bathtub now, can you believe?! While I'm sick!"

Miles stretches up his arms, his back making some cracking sounds. "Ahhh, how incredibly concerning! "

"I love you, Mi."

"That's... wow... isn't it a bit too soon for such strong words?" He scrunches his nose. "We've just got laid, I mean."

"Wanker!" Alex starts tele-splashing water at Miles from every angle. "Say it back?"

"Stop it, damn it, Alex! Yes! I love you, too. There," Miles throws his arms around, trying to get to Alex but still feeling immersed in some tsunami of splashes, "enough!"

"Okay, that's nice to hear, luv." He says, accent stripped off its thickness by peels of delighted laughter as he watches around the bigger-scale tsunami that seems to have come into the bathroom and the now filthy, not-so-glittery water. He stops picturing water charging at Miles and stares at the man that appears, beautiful, and giving him the two finger salute. "I've missed you."

Miles tilts his head, something about Alex's dulcet tones tugging at his heartstrings all of the sudden, "Me...or the mind-blowing sex?"

"You, bein' with you," Alex decides, pointer finger tapping his boyfriend's perfect small nose. "And if that includes sex...so be it."

X

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
